The media who cried meningitis

Walking outside, one can see the many TV vans that clutter Nassau Street and the reporters —microphones in hand and cameramen in tow —who have invaded campus. And no, they aren’t here to cover the football team.

Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts described it as a “serious scare” and “potentially deadly.” Time Magazine labeled it a “campus contagion.” Businessweek chose the moniker, “meningitis crisis.” The recent news of the FDA’s approval of Princeton’s decision to import a foreign vaccine has sparked an unusual amount of media attention.

While most students find the extra attention amusing, competing among friends to see who can appear in the most TV interviews or get the funniest questions about the disease from home, the media attention may be more harmful than entertaining.

The media’s colorful usage of language portrays the campus as a hotbed of some mystery disease that will lead to a real life World War Z. As if overnight, the situation on campus has erupted into a contagion that needs to be quarantined. Fears of bacterial meningitis even prompted one concerned commenter on NBC to write, “Great! Put the students and faculty in airplanes, buses, cars, ships and trains and then send them all over the U.S. for the Thanksgiving holiday, where they can spread the disease to the entire country.”

When these descriptions are juxtaposed with reality, it is a little hard not to laugh. Granted, bacterial meningitis is no joke. It is a serious disease and the University’s decision to import the vaccine is unquestionably a good one. That being said, it is hard not to compare the concern of family and friends in the form of extremely cautious calls and texts to our relatively unchanged everyday lives.

In light of the concern, it is important to remember several important facts. It is avoidable by taking simple precautions such as covering your mouth, washing your hands and not sharing cups or utensils. As reported several days after the coverage began, meningitis is “unlikely” to spread on campus. Only seven cases have been reported in the last few months. And between the beginning of the media coverage and beforehand, the situation has remained unchanged.

However, in the process of hearing this repeated message over and over, we contrast this image of contagion and viral disease that the media creates with our relatively normal lives. Classes are still scheduled. Student events are still being held. And on a campus of over 5,000 undergrads, not many have been personally affected. There is no dome or men in hazmat suits. When we see that, in fact, relatively little has changed, we will trick ourselves into easing our caution and concern.

This is evident in our amusement that competing teams refuse to shake our hands without gloves or import their own water to home games; our usage of the “Mine. Not Yours.” red meningitis prevention cups as decoration; and our labeling of the disease as the “Meng,” satirizing the darker image that the media presents. We just aren’t taking it seriously.

Yet, the worst thing we can do is put our guard down. When we no longer see bacterial meningitis as something that we should be cautious of, but rather as something comical that can be taken lightly, or even worse ignored, we are putting ourselves more at risk than in any other way. The best way to prevent it is by doing relatively simple things. When the bar is raised, however, and the media creates this impression that we need to perform Herculean feats to avoid a relatively non-present disease, our desire to take any of the precautions at all seriously, even the smaller ones, decreases.

The real fear is that when a health problem actually arrives in the future, it may be hard to take it seriously again in light of the current response. And when the media cries meningitis again, maybe no one will listen.

Benjamin Dinovelli is a sophomore from Mystic, Conn. He can be reached at bjd5@princeton.edu.