Buried Like a Needle in a Haystack

Speaking of the impeccable integrity of journalism, I found it a mite bit strange last week when I came across this story about the possibility of seasonal flu shots raising a person's risks of contracting swine flu buried deep in Section B of Nova Scotia's provincial newspaper.

Strange because Section A (in other words, the entire front piece) of that day's paper, all 10 plus pages of it, made no mention of what could have turned out be such an important little fact. Instead it was full of stories about like this one, setting out Nova Scotia's plan for inoculating its residents against both H1N1 and the seasonal flu and others concerning whether or not pharmacists might be used to give the H1N1 vaccine.

It's always good to see even, unbiased reporting, says I.

Then again, in their defence, I suppose they might have been a little concerned that if they put the story in the front half of the paper, there might just be some readers out there gullible enough to think that there could possibly be any legitimate concern [scroll to the bottom of the link] about this newest, or any, vaccine. And we would never want that to happen.