I WORK for a newspaper so I suppose I must be part of it. I should shoulder some of the blame.

I confess that in my time I have written the odd (several dozen, but what the heck) scare story about spells of warm weather threatening to dry up reservoirs, rain that could (if it carried on for 90 days and 90 nights) result in floods of the type even Noah couldn't handle and snow flurries that could bring the whole of Yorkshire's road system to gridlock faster than you can say 'council gritter.'

Yes, to some extent an accusing finger must be pointed in my direction. Because I am part - albeit a very tiny one - of the media. And it is newspapers, television and radio which have created a nation not of well-adjusted, sensible people but of panickers.

We are a nation of people who, spurred on by the media, wildly over-react to everything.

Take last week's snow. True, it did appear. It was white and cold and made driving a degree or two more difficult than usual.

But did we really need to be frightened into believing that we were about to suffer a second Ice Age? Newspaper reports stopped only marginally short of bringing long-tusked woolly mammoths into the wind-blasted, icy, Arctic-like conditions that they led us to believe were about to scupper our plans for a browse in the shops, a meal in Pizza Hut and a film at the Odeon.

People were genuinely frightened - some were quite literally losing sleep over whether they would make it from A to B and indeed whether they should leave home at all. Fair enough, my neighbour abandoned plans to drive to Northumberland, as any level-headed person would have done. But some were reluctant to travel five minutes down the road to Tesco.

Last week's weather reports also resulted in a rush on soup stocks, a stampede on outdoor clothing and a rampage on salt.

People didn't behave like this in the past, when the winter weather was far worse. When I was young and it snowed like billio - drifts higher than mail boxes - my dad would simply get out the shovel, clear the drive and head off to work 30-or-so miles away. There was no fretting and fussing, no frantically filling the coal bunker with salt and the wardrobe with Gore-Tex.

In those days weather reports were just that. "Heavy snow is forecast..." Not: "Have you bought a 4x4 - because you're going to need one..."

People believe what they read or hear in the news and they react accordingly. One mention of a toy that's apparently going to be in demand at Christmas and it suddenly flies off the shelves.

We are often told that we shouldn't eat certain foodstuffs - salmon, beef, eggs - and people change their eating habits. Then it all blows over and it's safe after all.

We need to be informed about all these things - particularly the weather because it's a British obsession - but not in an apocalyptic way.

Now, there are exceptions, when we really DO need to be told in the strongest possible terms to batten down the hatches. October 1987, the South of England, sticks in my mind. Terrible storm that was - people were petrified, me included. Yet did we get a word of warning? No.

Updated: 08:34 Tuesday, February 03, 2004