8,000,000 People were not
murdered in New York City yesterday!

! How's that for an interesting, eye catching, make-you-want-to-buy the newspaper paper headline?
Not too exciting right? It is a commpn misconception that news media is in the business of selling news. They are not. They are in the business of selling advertisement space that happens to be mixed-in with news.
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Two Questions:
Do you think that a newspaper company could hire reporters, editors, press workers and paper deliverers, own buildings, presses and delivery trucks, and make a profit selling you a paper for $.50 ? Where does the bulk of their income come from?
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How they really make their money.
By far, the largest part of their income is made by selling advertisements.Companies in the media business generally lose money on distrubuting their content. The media basically charges advertising rates that are proportional to the estimated number of people who consume their information and are likely to be exposed to an advertisers message.
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Their Motive
The primary motive of the media is to get as many "readers" (viewers, listeners etc ...) as possible. How can this be done? By providing stories about the unusual, fantastic, dramatic, disgusting, unbelievable, Interesting or otherwise different from normal life. During the Civil War, Thomas Edison (as a child) sold newspapers on a train and noticed that his sales would jump for a few days after big civil war battles.

Exposed to this constant barrage of unusual stories, the general public begins to believe that the items shown repeatedly are normal ... after all, they hear about it every other day. Have you ever noticed, that right after a plane crash, there seems to be a whole barrage of crashes for several days. Is it true? Or, is it the media piling on the story creating an impression of this terrible trend of crashes? Earthquakes... once one happens, there seem to be an unusual number of them, throughout the world. True, or simulated end-of-the-world story? Look here for the log of recent earthquakes.
http://www.iris.edu/seismon/last30days.phtml

Have you heard about any of these lately?

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A suggestion
You decide, but next time there is a big disaster, gruesome murder, or a man bites a dog, keep your eyes and ears open and notice if there are more stories about the same topic.