HOW DARE SOME MEMBERS OF THE PRESS CHOOSE NOT TO SCARE THE BEJEEZUS OUT OF IGNORANT PEOPLE FOR NOTHING!

Angry Freepers direct my attention to this post at Zero Hedge:

HERE'S Why Ebola Is No Longer In the News

Forbes' David Kroll – an adjunct professor at Duke University Medical Center - notes:

The Associated Press and other press outlets have agreed not to report on suspected cases of Ebola in the United States until a positive viral RNA test is completed.

In other words, the mainstream media has agreed not to report on any suspected Ebola cases.

I guess the Ebola czar has been a busy boy, after all ... you know, preventing panic and all that.

I have no idea if the Ebola czar has discussed this with anyone in the media, but it works for me if some news organizations are looking at the number of Ebola scares that turn out to be nothing and have decided that they're spreading panic without spreading usable information. Now, it would be nice if we were rational enough to look at the number of scares that don't pan out and say, "Gee, there sure are a lot of scares that don't pan out -- far more than the grand total of two infected people who've flown into America from overseas, who've subsequently infected a grand total of two other people." But that's not how we think. We freak out even at a false alarm. So maybe we need a little less panic, until we grow up.

And it's not as if these false alarms are going altogether unreported -- the Forbes quote comes from a post about yet another scare involving a Liberian man in North Carolina whose test has come back negative. Here are dozens of articles about this case, written before, during, and after his test. Plenty of news organizations are reporting on such cases. But we've become infantilized by Ebola, so we're probably better off if a few news purveyors show some restraint.