Cats are easy targets, which is why Shukan Asahi took such a cheap shot at them in the banner headline of its print ads for the Dec. 4 issue: "New-type influenza being spread by cats!?" In the subhead, cat cafes were cited as "hotbeds of infection."

The article itself turned out to be much less provocative. There was a case in the United States earlier this year where it was believed that the H1N1 virus was passed from a person to a cat. The article blows this incident up in order to make a case that cats are dangerous carriers of swine flu even though it offers no evidence of any cats in Japan being discovered with the disease.

Maybe it was a slow week for tabloid news, but Shukan Asahi was just getting with the program of exploiting readers' fears over the H1N1 flu epidemic, which is expected to hit a new peak as winter approaches. Ever since the disease emerged last spring the media has been warning us that we won't understand its potential virulence until flu season. Now that it's finally upon us, news outlets are focused more hysterically on every related death and pronouncement from the health ministry without actually explaining what they mean.