For almost a week Jamaica held the international news headlines on Hurricane Melissa, which, without doubt, eclipsed even the important visit of United States President Donald Trump to Asia, as every major network provided wall-to-wall coverage of the historic storm.

Some of the major news outlets which either sent their own correspondents or linked with local journalists to provide coverage to the world, included CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, The Guardian, New York Post, CBC, Reuters, AP, AFP, Sky News, among others.

However, one of the features of the coverage which the international media might wish to consider is whether the sensational language used to describe the storm, especially ahead of its arrival, was overdone in the manner of the fabled boy who cried “wolf”.

Much of the social media commentary on the news reports complained that people were scared by the “heart-stopping” descriptions and some, particularly Jamaicans overseas, feared that “Jamaica was going to be wiped off the map.”

Some of the most dramatic reports spoke of an “unsurvivable hurricane”; “no country has ever experienced such a horrific storm”; “Most Jamaicans live in shacks”; “Jamaica is going to be slammed by a monster Category 5 hurricane”; “Jamaicans can expect catastrophic damage”; and “this is a life-threatening storm”.

We are aware that some networks, if not all, never take their eye off the need for greater ratings, and those who dispatch reporters overseas expect to recoup their expenses. At times it seemed that the competition for viewership was over the top.

Indeed, it was true that Melissa was historic, in that Jamaica has never before been hit by a Category 5 hurricane, the strongest on record. And the damage left behind was certainly devastating, especially in the coastal communities of the south-western parts of the island which took the worst hits.

While the local media parroted some of the coverage of the foreign press, by and large they were somewhat more measured. Of course, there were areas of weakness, but more in-house training should help, assuming that there is the appetite for it.

A point to bear in mind is that a weather forecast cannot be expected to be 100 per cent accurate. But it could be argued that greater care should be taken not to make it appear as frightening as the coverage of Melissa did. Should our medical facilities expect to find more people showing up with heart or stress-related problems?

Perhaps, even out of adversities, some positives could be drawn. With Jamaica being the main news in every corner of the world, we should be motivated to show our resilience and resolve to build back stronger, as the slogan goes. Indeed, we have to make this more than a political slogan as the world watches.

The response of the world to the disaster and the willingness to come to our aid, which is critical, demonstrate that Jamaica enjoys a level of goodwill that we can use to attract more visitors to our shores, once we can be opened for business again.

This is a challenge for all of us that must be led by the Ministry of Tourism which, thankfully, has an energetic minister in Mr Edmund Bartlett, supported by his very capable team at the Jamaica Tourist Board.