Sorry, vague title but I'm not sure how best to word it.

That Independent story about the public being 'wrong' is in many ways what I'm talking about. It's not about left/right press here, just the fact that stuff is 'news' and that's regardless of its statistical significance.

So people think teen pregnancies are so common because they get a disproportionate amount of news coverage, likewise violent crime. Of course, the flip side is that no one gives a shit about news stories telling you X number of people got home safely last night.

I think we saw the effect during the Olympics of a really weird and different news service with little reported aside from people having fun.

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Not that I don't think people should be informed but maybe it's detrimental to a lot of people's mental well-being or something. Hmm.