The ‘Bedbug Epidemic’: Real or Media Generated?

Travel Blog  •  Joanna Kakissis  •  02.26.08 | 12:21 PM ET

“[I]t’s like they’re all rooting for the bedbugs.” That’s how Joe McInerney, president of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, describes the reporters he’d spoken with about the so-called epidemic. There’s so much to love about the hideous bloodsuckers, the Washington Post reports, especially if you’re a trend-hungry newspaper reporter looking for a story.

Even The New York Times likened the bedbug resurgence in the city to a “swarm” a couple of years ago. But the Post’s David Segal writes that the avalanche of newspaper stories on bedbugs in the past few years has overstated the scale of the problem, “maybe wildly so.”

Tags: Health, Hotels, News and Briefs

Joanna Kakissis's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, among other publications. A contributor to the World Hum blog, she's currently a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder.


1 Comment for The ‘Bedbug Epidemic’: Real or Media Generated?

Frederic from the Vancouver Blog 02.26.08 | 11:11 PM ET

Bedbug infestation since DDT was banned…

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