Disinfotainment
Last night, ABC had a reasonably well-researched show called "System failure" hosted by Ted Koppel. Many of the issues that arise from Hurricane Katrina were covered, in a nice general overview.As always, good journalism has to be followed by bad.
The next show was called something like "Ready or not", an hour of poorly researched disinfotainment.
Just as a start, it probably caused some future deaths, because it repeated the long discredited notion that you should jump under a desk during an earthquake! That's a sure way to get crushed by a desk. Current field experts now recommend that you lie down next to a desk, so it can protect you from falling heavy structure.
But any show that begins with a panic propagated by the Council on Foreign Relations is already in the looney bin. The CFR does nothing without a purpose, and this purpose was clearly to distract from the ongoing problems in the medical industry, and divert funds to expensive 'emergency preparedness' plans. If we had a truly accessible, responsible and robust medical system, we'd be much better prepared for a disaster. Instead, the CFR-led story concentrated on the lack of a single drug, for a disease that has not yet evolved!
Someone, with money, should initiate a class action suit against the CFR, for causing death by distraction.
posted by Greg Bryant @ 1:04 PM
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