I don't think your mom is irrational given what is covered - but the big mistake we often make is thinking that what we read is representative of what is going on. I want to use data to show this effect on a number of issues.

And the larger point I will make in a future post is that news covers what people want to read, which is problematic if the goal is good decisions.

(As an engineer, I often think about this as akin to sampling bias)