Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

EDITORIAL: Media feast on TB flier a bit too rich
Staff Editorial
The Daily Iowan (U. Iowa)
06/08/2007

(U-WIRE) IOWA CITY, Iowa — On May 24, 31-year-old lawyer Andrew Speaker returned home to the United States from Europe, and in doing so touched off a media feeding frenzy resulting in everything from a revision of Homeland Security protocol to Senate hearings on just how such an intrusion could occur. Doctors recognized a highly drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis in Speaker's lungs in January and suggested he get specialized treatment at a Denver hospital.

Speaker said assurances were given to him by several doctors that he was not contagious, so he hopped on a plane with his fiancee and went through with a planned wedding trip to Europe. It wasn't until two hours after Speaker landed in Canada (he purposefully altered his flight arrangement so that he would not be stopped at customs upon arrival in the United States) that he was added to a "no-fly" list. A government order of isolation was issued for Speaker, the first of its kind since 1963.

Describing these events as a parade is only slightly less accurate than describing the media reaction as a circus. CNN and the 24-hour news networks pounced on the story right out of the gates when little was known other than a TB patient had entered the country, lobbing questions at their viewers. Were we under attack? Was this a new terrorist plot? Then Speaker's identity was revealed, and the questions became more accusing and confused, focusing on how someone would be so brazenly inconsiderate for his fellow passengers. Fox News pundit Bill O'Reilly pointed his finger at liberals, and a blogger on presidential candidate John Edwards' website blamed the government and lobbyists and described Speaker as "evil." On the flip side, ABC News sent in the big guns and had Diane Sawyer sit with the "health fugitives." Sawyer cooed in a soft voice before the interview that the event Andrew Speaker attended in Vietnam where officials believe he contracted the disease was a charity fundraising event.

The media get blamed for almost everything from failed U.S. policy in Iraq to increased domestic violence and poor test performance by school children. "It's the media" has almost become a cultural cop-out. This Editorial Board would like to remind the public that Brian Williams didn't force Jerry Falwell to say the controversial things he said, and Barbara Walters isn't responsible for flooding the airwaves with an item-by-item analysis of Paris Hilton's dinner menu from last night. A distinction needs to be drawn between legitimate, informative news stories and celebrity-focused minutiae that are largely irrelevant.

The media as a whole should not be blamed for the kind of calamities we've seen surrounding Speaker, and we shouldn't blame coverage of the event as a whole, either, but instead realize that there might be a threshold to just how much "Speakergate" is relevant. Taking in the news is like taking in food; one has to have a responsible diet. We must be selective of what we ingest and how much we ingest. We can't gorge ourselves on Glenn Beck or stuff ourselves with Al Franken, and a dash of US Weekly goes a very long way. News about Anna Nicole Smith and Paris Hilton is less nutritious and not as satisfying as that about Gary Steinke, Ross Wilburn, and UI Provost Michael Hogan. Rather than letting our emotions and beliefs sway on the roller coaster of media madness, we must sift the real arguments from the chaff and decide — on our own terms — where we stand. Andrew Speaker is very sick, but so are the rest of us — though in a very different way.

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