What do we die of? What do we report we die of?

Less than 0.001% of Americans die from terrorism. In contrast, in New York Times 18% of its coverage related to death focuses on this topic. Conversely, 29% of the country's citizens die from heart disease, but this represents only 4.1% of the newspaper's coverage. These figures come from an interesting comparison, which also shows the corresponding data for Washington Post And on Fox News. Homicides, for example, represent less than 1% of deaths, but on Fox News they account for 52% of their death-related coverage. It's clear to everyone that terrorism and murder are two issues that generate public alarm, and that justifies discussing them. But the imbalance is so stark that it forces us to reflect on whether we shouldn't start paying more attention to these other causes, which, ultimately, will end up affecting the public much more directly. In fact, heart disease and cancer have similar death rates, but cancer receives almost twice as much media attention, because there is clearly greater awareness, and it has been around for a longer time. This shows that the agenda can be set, and therefore, the media should increase the airtime they dedicate to these issues. Can they be prevented? How can we provide support? What are the underlying causes?

Overdoses account for only 1.8% of deaths, but they receive between 7.5% and 9.8% of media attention. Again, it's about public alarm, of course. However, shouldn't the media be the ones shifting this public alarm towards the causes that are truly affecting their readers the most? Looking at these figures and the difference between reality and narrative, it's clear that death journalism needs to change and increasingly consider itself life journalism.