One of the most striking points in the video is the statement issued by Democratic strategist Benard Whitman, who states that the reports of swine flu outbreaks in the U.S were actually people who came back from vacationing in Mexico, not the immigrants themselves. Author and anti-racist Tim Wise also commented on this siutation too, especially since Wise could not find any news reports that actually confirmed that the swine flu was brought into the United States by undocumented immigrants. As a result, Wise argues that the rush to scapegoat immigrants for swine flu is a way to manipulate the public from the actual source of the problem. He states that "If you can make the average American think their economic troubles are the fault of those who are ethnically and culturally different from themselves, and if you can make them believe that now their very survival is imperiled by these dangerous dark-skinned others, then you can control them, politically speaking."

Wise continues on the significance about being able to have an easy, traditional scapegoat in outbreak narratives because this results in the prevention of "identifying the real culprits... a global economy that depends on cheap labor and cares not a whit for the human costs of markets and bursting bubbles; an economic order beholden to large industry... in which order the search for profits crowds out the concern that might otherwise manifest for the health consequences of raising pigs in crowded, fetid pens until time for slaughter."

However, not all the negative media coverage about swine flu revolves around racism and prejudice. Some are just deliberately concentrated on presenting fearful messages. Newspapers did their part with big headlines. “Flu Fears Spur Global Triage,” said the Wall Street Journal. “Nation braces for worst as new strain emerges,” said USA Today. “U.S. Steps Up Alert as More Swine Flu Is Found,” said The Washington Post. The New York Post went with “HOG WILD,” complete with a photo of a pig.  In response to such media strategies,   Mark Feldstein, a former correspondent for NBC, ABC and CNN who teaches journalism at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. stated that “Of course we’re doing too much to scare people...Cable news has 24 hours to fill, and there isn’t 24 hours of exciting news going on. If you scare people, they'll tune in more." From this statement, we recognize that not only does media portray disease outbreak in a manner that marginalizes specific peoples, but there is also an economic benefit to motivate and sustain this type of coverage. 

The consequences of inaccurate media reporting are real.  In an editorial for the New York Times, Jim Dwyer recalls how he interviewed people who openly declared their fears of Mexican people because of the possibility that they might have swine flu. Additionally, he also shows how the vice president Joe Biden fell prey to the anxieties of disease outbreak, who said he’d advise his own family to stay off airplanes and subways in response to a toddler in Texas who was reported to have died from swine flu. As Dwyer argues “Just because one problem may turn out to be less dangerous than others — so far, no more than 25 people are confirmed as having died in Mexico [as of May 1st 2009] from the swine flu, compared with more than 6,000 killed by drug violence in that country last year — does not undercut the genius of modern public health surveillance, which quickly recognizes changes in the course of an illness.”

1. Take a look at this mapping of the swine flu outbreaks around the world, docuemnted by BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8083179.stm). Upon looking at it, what are some of your immediate reactions? Are the infected and death totals higher or lower than the media projections? Are they higher or lower than your own conceptualization of the outbreaks?
2. Compare how these two articles present their work http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/27/edgar-hernandez-hernandez_n_192011.html and http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/27/swine-flu-search-outbreak-source What are the differences, even though they are the same stories? For example, check the comments on the Huff Post Blog post due to title and blog. How would it be different if provided to whole thing like Guardian? How does this relate to the topic of media representation? 
3. When thinking about Mark Feldstein's comments about media, can you think of any other recent examples in which the media operated in a way similar to how they covered the swine flu outbreak?