'chatter on all these web foumrms about this flu.'

You could well be right Bill

'Pig plague and Twitter'
'Disinformation + internet = fear?'

According to CNN for some their role appears to be to spread disinformation, propagate fear and generally convert the unwashed masses into headless chickens drip-fed nonsense by sites such as Twitter.

'Among the gems on offer are plenty of tweets

- advising people not to eat pork,

- gloating vegetarians suggesting their day of vindication is nigh,

- biolgical warfare conspiracy theories and

- links to handy Google Maps mashups showing the inexorable spread of the mutant armageddon virus'

Twitter is not, though, a media outlet.
Sadly, the real media's handling of the outbreak, complete with doomsday statmongers ("could kill up to 200m, maybe..."), restrained headlines ("Horror in the Hospitals", as the Sun described the first couple of cases) has increasingly driven people to seek alternative sources of information