To talk about heart disease, critically, will unavoidably lead to discussing nutrition.
Discussing nutrition, in turn, leads to talking about the meat and processed foods industries.
Those two industries are way more harmful, health-wise, and aggressive, politically, than Big Tobacco has ever been at its peak. Virtually untouchable. Not in any big media outlet’s interest.
Case in point, debating a law banning plant-based burgers from being called burgers is the top priority for the European Parliament right now.
The one that gets me is the over representation of non-car vehicle deaths. Small plane crashes killing 2-3 routinely make international news. Non-lethal train derailments make international news. Bike fatalities make regional news here in Ontario. But the staggering number of daily automobile deaths are barely reported (outside of “heartstrings” stories where a group of young people die). I get that the news should report the non-standard events, but the overall impression given is that bikes, planes, and trains are more dangerous than they actually are.
how about wokeness? So much media coverage but how many confirmed deaths?
Before “does the news…” we should ask “should the news…” The answer to that question is no. It would be weird for the news to spend the vast majority of their resources reporting on things that aren’t noteworthy.
“The news” reflects what sells newspapers, drives clicks etc. “The news” exist primarily to capture attention and sell it to advertisers
That seems to show that we are much more concerned with violence than with disease.
That seems like a normal human reaction. If I hear that my neighbour died of cancer I’m sad. If they were murdered I’m outraged.
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https://ourworldindata.org/does-the-news-reflect-what-we-die-from
To talk about heart disease, critically, will unavoidably lead to discussing nutrition.
Discussing nutrition, in turn, leads to talking about the meat and processed foods industries.
Those two industries are way more harmful, health-wise, and aggressive, politically, than Big Tobacco has ever been at its peak. Virtually untouchable. Not in any big media outlet’s interest.
Case in point, debating a law banning plant-based burgers from being called burgers is the top priority for the European Parliament right now.
The one that gets me is the over representation of non-car vehicle deaths. Small plane crashes killing 2-3 routinely make international news. Non-lethal train derailments make international news. Bike fatalities make regional news here in Ontario. But the staggering number of daily automobile deaths are barely reported (outside of “heartstrings” stories where a group of young people die). I get that the news should report the non-standard events, but the overall impression given is that bikes, planes, and trains are more dangerous than they actually are.
how about wokeness? So much media coverage but how many confirmed deaths?
Before “does the news…” we should ask “should the news…” The answer to that question is no. It would be weird for the news to spend the vast majority of their resources reporting on things that aren’t noteworthy.
“The news” reflects what sells newspapers, drives clicks etc. “The news” exist primarily to capture attention and sell it to advertisers
That seems to show that we are much more concerned with violence than with disease.
That seems like a normal human reaction. If I hear that my neighbour died of cancer I’m sad. If they were murdered I’m outraged.
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