A recent study has shown how bad news events like murder and terrorism are extraordinarily over-covered by American media. For example, homicide receives approximately 4,300% more media coverage than its share of deaths across the American population every year. The same is true for terrorism, which is over-reported by a staggering 18,000%. The study gathered news stories from three of the largest news outlets in America: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Fox News. Their criteria was set to ensure that the stories focused on these causes of death as the topic, rather than in passing. Heart disease and cancer accounted for 56% of deaths among these 15 causes, but together they received just 7% of the media coverage. Rare but dramatic events like homicides and terrorism received more than half of all media coverage, despite together representing less than 1% of all deaths in America. Drug overdoses were also overrepresented by four times their share of mortality events in the American population, while suicide was overrepresented by 80%. Nearly 6 in 10 Americans still see international terrorism as a critical threat to the U.S., despite the domestic impact on the U.S. being relatively low for two decades. In fact, terrorism killed just 16 Americans last year, about half the number of Americans killed in elevator accidents. So, if you’re not thinking twice about climbing into an elevator, you shouldn’t be overly concerned about terrorism. Heart disease and cardiovascular events kill 2,000 Americans every day, but you’ll never hear about that in the news. However, a dramatic event like a plane crash or shoot-out on the streets — with eye witnesses and dramatic recounting — will make the headlines without question. Even though it’s clear that the number of news stories on a topic doesn’t actually reflect the overall state of a society, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking it does, and feel depressed because you’re led to believe life is full of malicious, despairing savagery.
