Page 15 - January 2020 IIssue new year

The Spectrum of Death: Perspective on News Coverage

and sufficiently reason- member, or neighbor, or Thus, both as we look
B able. worker, or friend, or just backward at deaths we

R in our neighborhood. And know personally, and
O But we do see a relation, the incident involved a forward at the most likely
W or at least a correlation, heart attack, or an auto ac- causes of our death (and

A between the media report- cident, or a miscarriage, or maybe more pointedly
R ing on the causes of fa- a cancer. And we wonder the likely causes for our

D talities, and the attention why it had to happen, and family and loved ones),
given to prevention. The question what could have those causes lie not in the
U attention tends to follow, been done, and how those highly reported or unique

N at time strongly, the level impacted will carry on. incidents, but in typical,
I of reporting. This supports recurring conditions.

V our concern, that media Similarly, we each face
E reporting, and likely other risks of death, from This personal perspec-
R factors, skews actions similar, individual, less- tive gives us a basis from

S against deaths, at least reported causes, again which to adjust our bal-
I slanted enough that an below the media radar. ance. As we absorb the

T equalizing becomes war- Thus, our greatest risks daily media reporting of
Y ranted. And equalizing not lie not in plane crashes, or armed murders, or become
through lessening current storms, or even shootings, captured by the continu-

2 actions against causes but rather in the typi- ous coverage of a terrorist
0 receiving emphasis, but cal causes. For the ages attack, or hear ongoing

2 through more action on of 45 through 64, medi- segments on the investiga-
0 those causes not receiving cal conditions -- cancer, tion of a mass shooting,
as much emphasis. heart disease, kidney is- we can balance that per-

sues, diabetes -- lead by spective with our own per-
Equalizing the Balance far the causes of death. sonal experience of how

Even in the younger ages those around us passed,
Almost all of us, at some of 25 through 44, medical and how we most likely
time, have experienced conditions continue as a might die, which will,

a tragic incident, a local, leading cause of death, but with high certainty, not be
individual one, an inci- joined by auto accidents, through those causes that

dent beneath the radar of suicide and drug over- draw heavy media cover-
media reporting. The inci- doses. age.
dent occurred to a family

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