It’s 11:35 p.m., May 5, 2009 when the plane touches down at Kahului Airport on Maui’s North Shore. I had just graduated from journalism school — and straight into unemployment. The plan was to spend the next 10 glorious island days unwinding with my fiancée.

More importantly, we had escaped the nascent pandemic sweeping the mainland: the swine flu. H1N1. Texas Tea. Or had we escaped something far worse: non-stop, disaster journalism.

It was only days earlier that the first confirmed cases of H1N1 hit Canada. I, with my paranoid tendencies, avoided crowds, kids and doorknobs, like Brian Mulroney avoids transparency.

Gamma-ray rage coursed through my veins when people dared to cough or sneeze in my direction. I wasn’t going to be taken out by some selfish, mucus-y bastard who didn’t have the wherewithal to self-sequester.

“How did it come to this?” I thought, whilst swallowing fistfuls of vitamin C, oregano oil and other quasi-medicinal remedies to ward of this relentless virus.

Surely the hundreds of headlines like ‘Survivor watched patients dying,’ ‘Sneaky virus remains a threat’ and ‘U.S. health officials expect outbreak to worsen had nothing to do with my own paranoia going viral?

Relaxing in our rented condo in Paia, I occasionally scanned the news channels and flipped through local papers, certain I’d be a distant witness to apocalyptic images wrought by this H1N1. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I shit you not.

Back home, however, the headlines and column inches continued to pile up. By the time we returned, the hysteria had subsided… somewhat. For, fear not, a second wave was all but certain, we were assured.

Indeed, a second wave of disaster journalism. By the time the province’s much-criticized vaccination program rolled out last fall, media coverage hit ridiculous heights. As one health official told me recently, eyes surely rolling, the H1N1 story was “well covered.”

As Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com, describes in his 2007 book, It’s not news, it’s FARK: How mass media tries to pass off CRAP as news, media often experience a massive responsibility-collapse during supposed disasters. From Y2K to SARS to anthrax to the swine flu, it whips the public into a panicked frenzy with stories heavy on fear and conjecture, light on context and fact.

Delving into the news archives reveals the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun have run almost 1,300 stories with references to H1N1 since the first confirmed case in Canada. That’s just two newspapers.

Muted panic ensued. Canadians, urged health officials, should find a “health buddy” so as not to overload the 9-1-1 emergency lines. Hand sanitizer replaced showers; industrial-strength soap just doesn’t cut it.

Forgoing science (and common sense), some people resorted to H1N1 Parties: a ridiculous, cult-like practice akin to snake handling, believed to strengthen one’s immune system — like taking a brick to one’s head to build up a resistance to concussions.

By now I began second-guessing my instincts, contemplating lining up with hundreds of other Calgarians to be vaccinated. I even urged my pregnant sister-in-law to follow my lead. “Don’t risk your baby. Get the shot! David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, told me so!”

And the news stories continued unabated: lineups, possible H1N1confirmations (though many health agencies weren’t testing everyone with flu-like symptoms), longer lineups, government failuress… DISASTER!

It was a pivotal moment for me. The day I opened up the Herald to see no less than five pages dedicated to H1N1 “coverage” was the day I ended my subscription. (Note: Dear Herald subscription department: Quit phoning me on a daily basis. I have no plans to come back anytime soon. All the best, Trevor.)

But that was oh-so-long ago. Now that the supposed disaster has passed, the very same media, notes Fark’s creator, responds in an ‘Awww shucks’ manner, taking up air time and column space reflecting whether the media went too far. (You did.)

Now, a year later, and quite predictably, those “reflective” stories are cropping up everywhere. Did we go too far? Were officials wrong? Were we wrong? Was the flu really the threat officials made it out to be?

Apparently no.

According to Alberta Health Services, there have been 1,278 confirmed cases of H1N1 in the province and 71 deaths — tragic for those who lost a loved one, but hardly a pandemic.

Maybe Alberta’s mass vaccination program, now being praised by some of its former critics, staved off disaster. As of February, 1.25 million Albertans have been vaccinated. Great success!

However, compare that to Poland, which has a population more than 10 times Alberta’s. The rare voice of reason during the outbreak, Poland’s prime minister steadfastly refused to buy the vaccine unless makers took responsibility for any side-effects — they didn’t. Yet that country experienced 53.12 H1N1 infections per million people, compared to Alberta’s 400 infections per million people.

Paul Flynn, a British MP and vice-chair of the health committee for the Council of Europe, recently told the CBC that the H1N1 pandemic was a world scare that never lived up to its billing. The council is now investigating whether pharmaceutical companies pressured European countries to buy untested vaccines.

There are also allegations the World Health Organization may have been influenced by pharmaceutical firms to change the very definition of the term pandemic.

GlaxoSmithKline, one of the makers of the vaccine, saw its profits soar during the height of the pandemic — its fourth-quarter earnings: $2.6 billion, up from $1 billion from the same period the year before.

Meanwhile, the Alberta government is trying to return $2.2-million worth of expiring vaccine, unused Costco-sized tubs of COLD-FX and Purell hand sanitizer, as I sit here, wondering why the media continues to lament its demise.