Don't panic! The press does a Corporal Jones

Panic over. That was the panic when we were told not to panic because none of us was at risk simply because we were not birds. How have we moved from a pandemic to a complete lack of concern in no longer than it takes a dead swan to float across the North Sea?

I am not one of those who blames the media for everything; indeed I get equally exasperated by mendacious politicians forever blaming those who rightly ask the questions, and by the angry phone-in callers who blame the messengers for all that incenses them. But in this case the media are not blameless.

Avian flu had been simmering away gently in distant places for some time, and the British media and public were able to treat it with the same detachment as famine in Africa, mildly concerned but unaffected. When the flu came to Europe it seemed to be more a television story that a print one; the cameras developed an affection for emaciated chickens clucking around dirty Turkish yards, surrounded by poorly clothed children putting their hands where it was unwise to do so.

The media failed to whip up a pan-panic. Stories appeared from time to time about the inevitability of the disease arriving in Britain, and about our state of preparedness for this chilling moment. Only, we were assured, the moment would not be chilling because we couldn't catch it. We got on with our lives.

Then came news from a place most of us had never heard of, Cellardyke in Fife. A dead swan had washed up on the beach. It tested positive for H5N1, the deadly virus. I remember listening to the radio and watching television that night. The excitement mounted. The anticipation was over. It was a news junky's nirvana. Within minutes the listeners were on the line, experts had been rustled up, graphic artists had prepared the charts, and government ministers, scientists and vets were proclaiming their readiness to cope. It was not unlike how we might imagine an invasion from a distant planet.

The newspapers joined in the following morning with page after page of reporting, "analysis", mood pieces and colour pieces. Health correspondents, agriculture correspondents, Scottish correspondents, political correspondents: all were drafted. Swan correspondents appeared thin on the ground.

By any standards it was overkill at that moment of one avian corpse of unknown origins. Everyone jumped to conclusions. And those who had published six or eight potential pandemic pages then had the cheek to run "No need for panic" editorials. What were we meant to do as we confronted the pandemic of newsprint and air time?

John Humphrys, in one of his most hysterical interviews with the chief government scientist, went on and on and on about the delay in testing the dead swan. Others harangued ministers about supplies of vaccine.

Why do we go so far so fast? One news executive told me it was fear of being left behind. Hype happens because the market is competitive and turning up the volume can turn up the audience.

Restraint, pause for consideration, waiting to be sure, admission that the picture is incomplete, none of these is much a part of journalism today. Of course, all reporting is the picture as it appears at that moment - incomplete, still emerging. And it is not the job of the journalist to wait until everything is clear. But in an age of rolling news the news has to keep moving, as though there is a news refresh button on every story.

When it is science or medicine the reality does not move so fast. When the drug test that went wrong story emerged we had elephant men, black plastic bags of vomit, imminent death. All of this from "witnesses". We heard later that it was not quite like that.

We have heard now that Cellardyke's mute swan has become a whooper swan, that the native bird on the beach had probably drifted in, dead on arrival, from mainland Europe. And it did not take long for pages and pages of bird flu coverage to fade to almost nothing. And then nothing.

It doesn't mean there is nothing to worry about. It does mean it was all crazily over the top, and it will be that bit harder when it really is serious to convince readers that this is the case.

Qualities push ahead

The latest newspaper circulation figures reflect a tough marketplace where no amount of free DVDs, television advertisements and price cuts can hide the downward pressure on sales. Year on year, in both daily and Sunday markets, only five papers have increased sale: the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Daily Mail, The Observer, and the one you are enjoying, The Independent on Sunday. Of those five, four are in the quality sector of the market and three have relaunched from broadsheet to a smaller format over the past six months.

A look at sales averaged over a six-month period, October 2005 to March 2006, tells just the same story for the Sunday market, and for the daily sector apart from better figures for the two papers downsized longest, The Independent and The Times.

The overall picture is of greater decline the more downmarket the title. The three red-tops, The Sun, Daily Mirror and Daily Star, sold 65,000 fewer copies last month than in March 2005. On Sunday, no matter who the fake sheikh manages to bamboozle, no matter how many C-league celebrity dalliances are unearthed, the departure of readers is dramatic. Another 213,000 sales lost for the big three, the News of the World, the Sunday Mirror and The People, compared with a year ago.

Express sales figures, daily and Sunday, have been excused over recent months because of that group's decision to move away from including "bulks" - copies dumped in hotels or on trains and planes - in their circulations. Other groups have been doing this for some time. But this amnesty for the Express titles will have to stop soon. For now, simply note that year on year the Daily Express is down 11.4 per cent, the Sunday Express down 11.9 per cent, the Daily Star down 7.2 per cent and its Sunday version down 18 per cent. These are seriously large numbers.

Peter Cole is professor of journalism at the University of Sheffield