H5N1 as an underreported story

This morning I got an email from Poynter Online, an excellent website for journalists, about Time Magazine's recent list of the ten most underreported stories of 2007. Did I have any comments about this, and what were my thoughts on such stories?

Well, I wrote to Poynter Online - Forums, and this is what I said:

I've been reading Time Magazine since I was 9 years old (1950), and I treasure my bound set of Time from July-November 1930, bought in the Thieves' Market in Mexico City over half a century ago.

Reading a recent issue in my dentist's office last week, I realized it has turned itself into a comic book. Well, in 1930, Time thought Adolf Hitler was "virile." The writing then was no better than the pictures now.

So I don't much care what Time thinks is a top story or an underreported story.

But having blogged about avian flu since March 2005, I think it's a seriously underreported story--in several senses of the word "underreported."

First, most flu reports ignore the 5 W's. We rarely learn the basics of any given case or outbreak. The most recent outbreaks in Pakistan and Indonesia have been the most serious in two years, but we know almost nothing about them.

Second, western media have failed to put their own people on the ground in countries where governments have no interest in honest, accurate reporting. So we're at the mercy of the Jakarta elite and the Burmese junta, and a host of similar worthies, for information about the disease.

Third, a sick turkey in England counts for more than a dead kid in Java or Egypt. The implicit racism of western media's flu coverage shames me both as an educator and as a journalist.