[jal278]

The function of news is to help a democratic citizenry be critically informed, and that this kind of statistic doesn't accomplish what it set out to do, although it's certainly interesting for its own sake. I think it's a challenge of our age to figure out how to create institutions that are wise and don't simply bend to distorting pressures (money, politics, psychology).

For example, we do want terrorism over-represented relative to old-age-deaths. However, a responsible and self-aware media would really attempt to counteract 'availability bias' -- e.g. that due to the human mind what is repeated we tend to assume is actually more prevalent. But we don't have wise institutions at the moment.

The more general problem is that it is hard to quantitatively demonstrate the ways in which media fails at fulfilling its complex societal role, because it is a qualitative failure in general, although we can poke at it's edges for sure (e.g. fearmongering language probably has gone up, as has polarization on both sides of the aisle, and the amount of information-free 'babbling and speculating' in the immediate aftermath of some event has likely gone up over time).