The manipulation of the conversation around vaccines in the mainstream media has been nothing short of a tour de force. If you read only mainstream publications, you might come away with the impression that outbreaks of measles are the most serious public health crisis since the Black Death. You might think that those who do not vaccinate are uneducated, superstitious, “anti-science” zealots who get their information from daytime talk shows. You might even start to feel outrage at these people who – for no good reason at all – have decided to endanger everyone else by refusing to do what every doctor knows is perfectly safe, effective and the socially responsible thing to do.

The presentation of this issue has been a study in just how easy it can be to generate mass hysteria around a particular threat – even while much more serious threats inspire no such response. It’s as if every mainstream reporter has been given the same playbook to use in putting together their articles about vaccines – a playbook designed to elicit the above response from the public. I’ve tried to imagine what this playbook must look like and I think I’ve come up with a pretty decent facsimile. Here it is, along with my own annotations...