Often not reporting on a problem would be exactly the right thing to do.
This is a discussion we as a society are not having, and I believe we should. We had free mass media for long enough already to know that the general population can - and far too often does - go batshit insane thanks to news stories[0]. It's not enough that the reporting itself screws availability heuristic badly, the standard practice of journalism now consists of twisting the story (sometimes even outright lying) to maximize readers' outrage.
And no, one can't say it's the responsibility of the reader to not be fooled; news-induced dysrationalia is systemic, it is predictable.
Reminds me of a thing I read today, a reply on Quora about child soldiers posted by an ex-Marine[1]. Apparently, the primary military value of children is pissing off westerners. Military groups using them let journalists photograph kids with guns, maybe even some dead ones (doesn't really matter who killed them), and wait for the outraged civilians to push against their own countries' war efforts.
[0] - why are we having this "War on Terror" again?
This is a discussion we as a society are not having, and I believe we should. We had free mass media for long enough already to know that the general population can - and far too often does - go batshit insane thanks to news stories[0]. It's not enough that the reporting itself screws availability heuristic badly, the standard practice of journalism now consists of twisting the story (sometimes even outright lying) to maximize readers' outrage.
And no, one can't say it's the responsibility of the reader to not be fooled; news-induced dysrationalia is systemic, it is predictable.
Reminds me of a thing I read today, a reply on Quora about child soldiers posted by an ex-Marine[1]. Apparently, the primary military value of children is pissing off westerners. Military groups using them let journalists photograph kids with guns, maybe even some dead ones (doesn't really matter who killed them), and wait for the outraged civilians to push against their own countries' war efforts.
[0] - why are we having this "War on Terror" again?
[1] - http://www.quora.com/Why-do-Western-militaries-not-want-to-k...