Readers&#8217; No. 1 debate about The Kansas City Star&#8217;s news judgment is consistent: Which stories deserve a place on Page A-1, and which should have run inside &#8212; or not at all.</p><p>I&#8217;ve rarely heard that discussion more polarized than some of the many comments I&#8217;ve received about the outbreak of influenza A (H1N1), commonly (and less accurately) referred to as swine flu.</p><p>Especially in the earliest days of the outbreak, most of the voices were calling for The Star to pay as much attention as possible to the spread of the virus, especially in areas around Kansas City.</p><p>&#8220;Please! I&#8217;m begging you!&#8221; went one of the most passionate pleas I heard. &#8220;As a mother of a toddler who often shops and travels to Kansas, can you please do an investigative report into where in Kansas these outbreaks have taken place? Please!&#8221;</p><p>Several other readers echoed that request, but I also had conversations with several who felt The Star, and the media in general, overplayed the story.</p><p>&#8220;We know the CDC has told us influenza kills 36,000 people in this country every year, and as of this morning, the World Health Organization is confirming 331 cases and 10 deaths,&#8221; said a caller last Friday morning. &#8220;Please, can The Kansas City Star keep things in perspective for us? Be responsible.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve put this thing on the front page pretty much all week,&#8221; said another. &#8220;I think you are following the Pied Piper of cable news, and it isn&#8217;t good. They have 24 hours a day to fill, so they keep beating us over the head with this, just like they did with SARS and bird flu and everything else that&#8217;s coming to kill us all. I usually think newspapers have a calmer head, so you should tell your editors enough is enough.&#8221;</p><p>That&#8217;s certainly a fair critique. I&#8217;ve often spoken to people who think journalists take too much stock in worst-case scenarios. Readers have reminded me many times that every fall seems to bring panicked reports about how terrible the flu season will be, followed by a spring assessment that it really ended up not so bad, or that scientists bet on the wrong strain in preparing their vaccines.</p><p>&#8220;The Star should lead the way in being as skeptical of science as it is with politics and the courts,&#8221; said one caller. &#8220;I think you&#8217;re pretty good with following the money, but I don&#8217;t know why you don&#8217;t apply that same thing to researchers.</p><p>&#8220;Everyone always points out if a tobacco company or a drug company paid for thus and such research, and they should. Don&#8217;t you think the CDC has a reason to justify their budgets by making things sound as much of a worst-case scenario as possible, though?&#8221;</p><p>This is a tricky argument, because increased public awareness of health risks makes prevention much easier. Who knows how bad things might become without media attention to the threat?</p><p>But I agree with readers that newspapers should resist the &#8220;big&#8221; broadcast story when it&#8217;s out of proportion with reality.