There's a difference between (1) a statistical survey, (2) "the news found it somewhere and needed clickbait to stay in business", and (3) regular people are re

There's a difference between (1) a statistical survey, (2) "the news found it somewhere and needed clickbait to stay in business", and (3) regular people are reporting seeing it. Of course, properly collected statistics is best, but short of that, I'd be more inclined to believe it's widespread if ordinary people are reporting it's around them. It's the news' job to go around and look for a story, so they're likely to find it somewhere. Neither is proper proof, only statistical survey would be, but a combination of 2 and 3 is close enough for me and you've already said it was on the news, thus my question.