tablair

I mean, if we’re going to replace someone in Government, it seems like there’s a more obvious candidate than the Speaker of the House.

There’s a saying about the news that “if it bleeds, it leads.” And it’s definitely true that inspiring fear in readers/viewers is a reliable way to increase engagement. However it can lead to unrealistic fears among consumers of that news. For example, the media coverage of plane crashes leads to people who are afraid to fly despite it being, statistically, among the safest ways to travel.

For your work, serial killers seem to fall into that category of getting a disproportionate amount of coverage, both in the news and in popular entertainment shows. Do you think it is part of your responsibility to help readers place the stories you cover in a proper statistical context and, if so, what do you do or say to help them with that contextualization?