[coldtea]

>"Although all diseases claim almost 1,OOO times as many lives as do homicides, there were about three times as many articles about homicides than about all diseases. Furthermore, homicide articles tended to be more than twice as long as articles reporting deaths from diseases and accidents."

Doesn't that make sense? If diseases kill 1000x more people, they are not news -- they're same old, what has been going on since forever.

Now, if there a novel disease or epidemic, sure, that would get coverage.