Media has a cow

David Ropeik:

"The coverage of mad cow disease is demonstrating the tendency for reporters and editors to play up the dramatic, the frightening and the controversial aspects of risk stories, and to play down or omit altogether information that puts the risk in perspective. This fans public fears and drives demands that the government spend time and money protecting us from risks that aren't as big as such coverage leads us to believe.

...

"Finally, consider that in 2001 a study by our center at Harvard found that if mad cow disease occurred in the American cattle herd, the chance that it would spread to other animals or pose a threat to human health is extraordinarily low. This is because of the feed ban. Even with incomplete compliance, this ban keeps the disease from expanding through the herd, all but eliminating the chance that infected material will reach our tables. An isolated case, or several, is possible. But a large-scale threat to animals or humans is highly unlikely.

"Yet this important perspective has barely been mentioned by the major news outlets in America. Of more than 40 stories in the Wall Street Journal as of Dec. 29, only one mentioned the study, in the fourth paragraph from the bottom. In 38 stories in The Post, the results were cited in the last three paragraphs of a single story. USA Today has run 40 stories on this case of mad cow disease and mentioned these results just once. The Associated Press, Reuters and network television have all given similarly scant notice to this important part of the mad cow story. And the New York Times has not described these results once."

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