Media Reports as Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication: The Case of the Taco Bell E. coli Outbreak

The recent E. coli outbreak involving Taco Bell restaurants in six states resulted in dozens of confirmed cases of people becoming sick and hundreds of suspected cases. Fifty-three of these individuals were hospitalized, including an 11-year-old boy who developed Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome, a type of kidney damage. This was one of two major food-borne disease outbreaks that occurred in the fall of 2006, the other involving contaminated spinach from California, which resulted in hundreds of illnesses and three fatalities. Such public health emergencies typically generate substantial media coverage, making the news media a potentially important source of health risk information. However, scholars have criticized how effectively journalists actually communicate health risk information to the public (Keeney & von Winterfeldt, 1986; Wilkins & Patterson, 1987).

Building on the work of Mebane, Temin, and Parvanta (2003), the current study investigates the nature of media coverage of the Taco Bell E. coli outbreak in the context of accepted crisis and emergency risk communication principles and practices. The central question concerns the extent to which media reports reflected best practices concerning risk communication. Also of interest were variations in this comparison over time and across different kinds of media. To pursue these questions, a content analysis was conducted which examined a purposive sample of 283 media reports appearing between December 5, 2006 and December 13, 2006. Preliminary findings indicated that media reports exhibited clear strengths and weaknesses as crisis and emergency risk communication. The implications for communicating during emergencies are examined.