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> The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die They are precisely covered because they are exceptional. No one care about car a

> The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die They are precisely covered because they are exceptional. No one care about car accidents because that's a banal cause of death. But a plane crash is not. In countries like France where islamic terror attacks have became common place, small scale attacks causing a few deaths are not covered for days and days anymore. Also event like a terror attack informs more about the state of a country and the world than an one suicide (suicide rate or aggregate can be valuable insight hough).

nemild 8y ago
Absolutely, but many people use this news coverage to then make decisions. Statistically, this is crazy. Like Rosling, the point is that we need to understand why the media covers things the way it does.
randcraw 8y ago
Of course. By its very nature, outliers are the only thing that news covers. Exceptions make news. Conventions do not. If you're hearing it on the news, it's useless information, like a TouTube video of a cat playing the piano while juggling mice. Once upon a time, I think news was an invitation to get engaged in your community because change was needed or forthcoming, and as a citizen, it was your duty to know about the subject in order to contribute constructively, perhaps in a town hall meeting or at least in a civic (civil) conversation with neighbors. Today nobody acts upon what they learn in big media news, other than to form misinformed opinions fraught with bias, to vote only every few years for a bad binary choice in rigged elections fielding untrustworthy candidates who pretend to address problems but actually perpetuate them via myopic self-interested gangsterism. Pop news is 99% clickbait and 1% fact.
- devoply 8y ago
  The point of mass media is propaganda and entertainment in that order.
  - jrs95 8y ago
    And given that the point of entertainment, from the perspective of “the elite” (government officials but also other wealthy and powerful individuals who are a part of the same de facto governing system) the primary purpose of entertainment isn’t much different from a form of propaganda anyways. Mass media is largely about programming the populace. Now of course it’s not all produced with malicious intent, but that doesn’t stop the powers that be from influencing them, and by extension “the people” through mass media. But this is just my relatively uninformed opinion based on casual observation, not any serious study of the issue. Although given that if this were studied and published in a journal it would have likely gone through institutions which are subject to the same system which would be criticized by the research so...how much good could that really do? I suppose my cynicism towards the people I’m supposed to trust is the primary thing prevents me from having a more fact based view of the world.
    - alter_eco123 8y ago
      > I suppose my cynicism towards the people I’m supposed to trust is the primary thing prevents me from having a more fact based view of the world. How so? Is it not a fact that politicians can't be trusted, and that, as you said, the mainstream media is largely about programming the populace? "Cynisism" is what people call realism when they want you to stop talking about reality.
      - jrs95 8y ago
        Perhaps at one point I was realistic but I think at this point I’ve seen enough blatant deception that I am overly paranoid as sort of a defense mechanism. This is probably still more accurate than how I viewed things before, but all I really meant by cynicism is that I am conscious of the fact that I am probably even more distrustful than what would be reasonable, just as a result of negative experience. Perhaps I’m right, but I don’t have an objective rationale for this, it’s largely based on heuristics. To be a bit more concrete, it’s true that politicians and the media are liars, but then to extend that further to education, entertainment, and those who are culturally influential in general can be quite the stretch outside of a few specific data points. And how is it connected? How does this system actually work? It’s so complex it’s almost immeasurable. A critical view of this is necessarily heavily influenced by intuition and emotion IMO since you’re unable to trust a large body of your learned information from that mindset.
- Namrog84 8y ago
  "By its very nature, outliers are the only thing that news covers. Exceptions make news." Eventually won't the fact that the news only covers exceptions reverse in on itself when covering a non exception is in itself the exception?
  - Retra 8y ago
    No, because the exception is with respect to people's experiences, not with respect to what the news reports. People experience regular stuff every day, whether the news reports it or not.
losteric 8y ago
It's even in the name: news The deregulated "news" industry is primarily motivated by profit, informing the public is secondary. That's why we see a handful of stories on repeat for days - maximizes profit, minimize journalism and education.
jaredklewis 8y ago
I would say they deserve different kinds of coverage. A plane crash or terrorist attack is the kind of immediate news story that can dominate a news cycle for a week and that makes sense. But news papers and magazines also devote plenty of coverage to long term, on going problems, such as the coverage devoted to sexual harassment in the past year. And indeed, even when there have been no major terror attacks in several months, there is still always an endless stream of articles discussing the issue and how we might best approach it. We should expect that our news sources to devote more of their long form, investigative pieces to domestic problems like heart disease and traffic accidents.
- nemild 8y ago
  Agreed, but see my edit. The problem is that readers will see heavy coverage as "this is important" and I should be worried about this. For example, after 9/11, 1k more Americans died in car crashes, because they decided not to fly.
morsch 8y ago
Just so that people don't get the wrong idea: small scale terror attacks are not commonplace in France, nor anywhere else in Europe, by any reasonable sense of the word. From what I can recall, there have been two instances of fatal Islamist terror attacks in France in 2018. It's certainly in the single digits.

nemild 8y ago

Absolutely, but many people use this news coverage to then make decisions. Statistically, this is crazy. Like Rosling, the point is that we need to understand why the media covers things the way it does.

randcraw 8y ago

Of course. By its very nature, outliers are the only thing that news covers. Exceptions make news. Conventions do not. If you're hearing it on the news, it's useless information, like a TouTube video of a cat playing the piano while juggling mice. Once upon a time, I think news was an invitation to get engaged in your community because change was needed or forthcoming, and as a citizen, it was your duty to know about the subject in order to contribute constructively, perhaps in a town hall meeting or at least in a civic (civil) conversation with neighbors. Today nobody acts upon what they learn in big media news, other than to form misinformed opinions fraught with bias, to vote only every few years for a bad binary choice in rigged elections fielding untrustworthy candidates who pretend to address problems but actually perpetuate them via myopic self-interested gangsterism. Pop news is 99% clickbait and 1% fact.

devoply 8y ago
The point of mass media is propaganda and entertainment in that order.
- jrs95 8y ago
  And given that the point of entertainment, from the perspective of “the elite” (government officials but also other wealthy and powerful individuals who are a part of the same de facto governing system) the primary purpose of entertainment isn’t much different from a form of propaganda anyways. Mass media is largely about programming the populace. Now of course it’s not all produced with malicious intent, but that doesn’t stop the powers that be from influencing them, and by extension “the people” through mass media. But this is just my relatively uninformed opinion based on casual observation, not any serious study of the issue. Although given that if this were studied and published in a journal it would have likely gone through institutions which are subject to the same system which would be criticized by the research so...how much good could that really do? I suppose my cynicism towards the people I’m supposed to trust is the primary thing prevents me from having a more fact based view of the world.
  - alter_eco123 8y ago
    > I suppose my cynicism towards the people I’m supposed to trust is the primary thing prevents me from having a more fact based view of the world. How so? Is it not a fact that politicians can't be trusted, and that, as you said, the mainstream media is largely about programming the populace? "Cynisism" is what people call realism when they want you to stop talking about reality.
    - jrs95 8y ago
      Perhaps at one point I was realistic but I think at this point I’ve seen enough blatant deception that I am overly paranoid as sort of a defense mechanism. This is probably still more accurate than how I viewed things before, but all I really meant by cynicism is that I am conscious of the fact that I am probably even more distrustful than what would be reasonable, just as a result of negative experience. Perhaps I’m right, but I don’t have an objective rationale for this, it’s largely based on heuristics. To be a bit more concrete, it’s true that politicians and the media are liars, but then to extend that further to education, entertainment, and those who are culturally influential in general can be quite the stretch outside of a few specific data points. And how is it connected? How does this system actually work? It’s so complex it’s almost immeasurable. A critical view of this is necessarily heavily influenced by intuition and emotion IMO since you’re unable to trust a large body of your learned information from that mindset.
Namrog84 8y ago
"By its very nature, outliers are the only thing that news covers. Exceptions make news." Eventually won't the fact that the news only covers exceptions reverse in on itself when covering a non exception is in itself the exception?
- Retra 8y ago
  No, because the exception is with respect to people's experiences, not with respect to what the news reports. People experience regular stuff every day, whether the news reports it or not.

losteric 8y ago

It's even in the name: news The deregulated "news" industry is primarily motivated by profit, informing the public is secondary. That's why we see a handful of stories on repeat for days - maximizes profit, minimize journalism and education.

jaredklewis 8y ago

I would say they deserve different kinds of coverage. A plane crash or terrorist attack is the kind of immediate news story that can dominate a news cycle for a week and that makes sense. But news papers and magazines also devote plenty of coverage to long term, on going problems, such as the coverage devoted to sexual harassment in the past year. And indeed, even when there have been no major terror attacks in several months, there is still always an endless stream of articles discussing the issue and how we might best approach it. We should expect that our news sources to devote more of their long form, investigative pieces to domestic problems like heart disease and traffic accidents.

nemild 8y ago
Agreed, but see my edit. The problem is that readers will see heavy coverage as "this is important" and I should be worried about this. For example, after 9/11, 1k more Americans died in car crashes, because they decided not to fly.

morsch 8y ago

Just so that people don't get the wrong idea: small scale terror attacks are not commonplace in France, nor anywhere else in Europe, by any reasonable sense of the word. From what I can recall, there have been two instances of fatal Islamist terror attacks in France in 2018. It's certainly in the single digits.