I might not have faced an incident like Isabel Allende but the closest thing to it is the Covid-19 pandemic. Most people around the world take disasters or incidents like these differently, some countries are well developed and equipped to deal with situations like these and then some countries do not have enough resources but then there is the United States of America where there despite being enough resources and being well-developed, we could handle the situation as good as Europe did. Instead, we panicked and made the situation even worse for one another. Buying paper towels in bulk and what not and emptying the shelves of grocery stores, God forbid we become a little thoughtful for other people. The Internet helped a lot, instead of going through whole broadcasts, there were websites that kept me aware of what the situation was like, was it changing for the better or the worse but that might not have been the case for Colombia at the time, Wi-Fi was not a thing then or phones that had internet. If they got trapped, all they could do is scream for help until someone hears them. Although many people go on their phones and see that the numbers are going down, they start feeling as if everything has gone to normal even if it hasn’t and start ignoring the SOPs. Politicians and governments all play a very crucial role in handling situations like these and most around the world failed to do so, they took the threat very lightly despite being warned. Most of the media, in my opinion, terrifies people even more and is the main reason why people were panicking and not leaving basic or essential stuff for day-to-day lives in the supermarkets.
The question was asking you to focus specifically on the experience of watching a disaster unfold on our screens. You say two different things about the media here: that it’s useful as a source of information, but that it also has a negative role to play by spreading misinformation or making people panic unduly. What has YOUR experience of the media been?