Page 9 - January 2020 IIssue new year

The Spectrum of Death: Perspective on News Coverage
operatives.
But by-and-large the me-
dia will bypass stories of
less human interest and
emotional content. Con-
sider the last time we
Photo Courtesy of google.com the recurring, the individ-
might have come across a ually insignificant.
news feature on whether
alternate algorithms for
distributing medical re-
search grants would im-
prove post-surgical life
expectancy for heart op-
erations.
Let me not overstate the
slant in media focus in
death reporting. We cer- ring, typical causes, these
tainly can find investiga- deaths sum collectively to
tive reports on low profile an enormous toll. How-
incidents and causes. The ever, each death, taken
media attention to the individually, lacks, in the
flamboyant, or extraordi- vast percentage of cases,
nary, or devastating, does the visibility, drama or
not rule as an absolute. uniqueness to break into
But certainly the tendency the news cycle.
runs strong.
Do the data on fatalities
This strong tendency support this observa-
aligns with our hypothesis tion, that the lightly and
here, that news provides under-reported fatalities
only a partial perspective represent frequent and
on the spectrum of death. recurring actual causes of
The news captures the death? Let’s look at the
extraordinary, the moving, data to check.
the enraging, the highly
impactful, the directly The Spectrum of Death
related to immediate pre-
paredness, but misses to We will start with six
a large extent the typical, causes of fatalities receiv-
ing extensive and heavy
reporting across essential-
ly all levels and types of
And from a pragmatic media, and look at fatality
standpoint, many deaths data for each. The six con-
fall into this later group, sist of the following, and
and thus in turn fall below will be referenced as “the
the media’s radar. The first group”:
deaths from strokes, and
suicides, and cancer, and Weather
falls, and a whole group Mass Shootings
of similar daily, recur- Police Fatalities
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