If there is one plea I would make to Western media, it is this: join up the dots.

The latest hysterical, context-free reporting concerns an issue that has been brewing for months — Ebola. We are again seeing familiar images of distressed Africans struggling through another outbreak of this devastating virus. The World Health Organization, which the United States withdrew from last year, has now declared a public health emergency, while the West largely carries on as usual.

Two flawed assumptions drive this complacency: that the crisis has nothing to do with us, and that it will not affect us.