I skim-read multiple news aggregators daily, and for weeks now, every single day, 75% or more of the news is specifically about Covid-19.

By comparison, it is worth reminding younger readers that we didn't even know about the Spanish Flu until ~30 years ago. During WWI, we (humans) suffered the deadliest pandemic of the modern era, and it took 60-70 years before anyone even noticed.

If you didn't grow up before the Spanish Flu became common knowledge, that may be a hard thing to grasp ... but during the late-80s and into the '90s, there was this slow, years-long trickle of news from medical researchers, historians and (FFS) archeologists (?!!?) about how there might actually have been a massive global pandemic during WWI that no one knew about.

Today in Wikipedia, there is just one little tidbit about how various things like (intentional) under-reporting and co-mingling of flu deaths with war casualties, led to it being nicknamed "the forgotten pandemic" ... which doesn't really capture that sense of "Holy Fuck"-ness when you discover that up to 100 million people died of the flu one year, and no one even noticed.

Okay ... at any rate .... you get my point. In 1919, the news intentionally under-reported it worldwide (except in Spain ... hence the name), in part to help prevent panic.

Today, the news media coverage is just incredible. Nothing on Earth happens any more, except Covid-19. A few thousand people die (I'm sorry, but yeah, more people die in car accidents), and the Media loses its mind.

OTOH, honestly, it's mostly been pretty good, accurate, up-to-the-second coverage (as best I can tell), really driving home the message of "we know it sounds lame, but wash your hands, dammit ... a lot", and etc.

So ... thoughts? This constant in-your-face media coverage ... good or bad? How much is media causing the panic vs just reporting on it?

• Alabama’s Biggest Newspapers Publish Essays By 200 Women On Abortion Ban

This Sunday more than 200 women wrote essays published in the three newspapers owned by the Alabama Media Group — The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register — with some of the writers sharing their own stories of receiving abortions. The package of essays was also featured at the top of the Alabama Media Group’s website, www.al.com with the headline “Alabama women speak out.”

Here is the explanation on Al.com.

• It’s time to hear Alabama’s women

Alabama was the talk of the nation last week as the most restrictive abortion ban in the country became law.
But, missing from many of those conversations were the voices of women from this state.

So, we asked them to share their opinions on being a woman in Alabama. And more than 200 of them responded within less than 24 hours.

They are women who live here, and some who have left. Those who have prayed for this very law, and those who now live in fear. Mothers, trying to understand the message this law sends to their daughters and sons. And women who are angry that a majority of men in the state legislature spoke for them.

Many chose to write about the new law, and others chose to speak more broadly about their experiences and perspectives.

We’ve chosen to fill this Sunday’s editions of the Birmingham News, Mobile Press Register and Huntsville Times with their essays.

We’re also publishing headlines for every one of them below. You can click on the headline and read each individual story. We have restricted your ability to comment on our site about their essays, wanting their voices to be heard instead of debated.

No one should ignore their voices.

Yes, it is time we had a conversation about women in Alabama -- one in which the voices of Alabama women lead the way.

A directory for all 200 of these stories is available here: https://topics.al.com/tag/Reckon%20Voices%20of%20Women/