Hacker News Reader

It wouldn't make much sense for the news to report on things which were not newsworthy. That people die from very typical things people always die from just isn't news.

View on HN

But people have always died from violence. It's hardly news.

Fewer people die to violence now than they ever did. That’s what makes it news.

So by the argument, the more terrorism kills, the less it should be reported?

I think it's clear it's not due to its infrequency that it's reported on so much.

Are you sure about that? I haven't actually lived through the Troubles in England, but my understanding is that while terrorist acts were obviously reported by the news, there was much less hysteria than for today's much rarer terrorist events.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com