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Comment by Rebuff5007 | Hacker News Reader

What exactly is the point you are making?

It is very reasonable to think that our attention (in the form of editorialized reporting, or funded initiatives) is being spent on actual material problems affecting most people, and this article is claiming this is a gap here... which I, and maybe many others think is valuable.

> how many times can you write the same thing "american's are fat"?

Until its less of a problem? Like any difficult problem in the world, you can keep coming at it from different ways, use the latest / most effective tools of the day, look for new opportunities, etc, etc.

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Newspapers used to have an obituary section which did in fact report the deaths of most people, regardless of cause. Now these tend to get posted online instead, on social media and the websites of funeral homes. I am not convinced that readers of newspapers in the era of obits were less interested in, or had a more accurate understanding of the death rate of, murder and terrorism.

>What exactly is the point you are making?

1- That "cancer/strokes/heart problems" happens is hardly news, despite "killing more people" than other things reported. Especially since almost everybody old enough eventually suffers such health problems.

2- Despite their little newsorthiness, they're still covered in a big way, and there are huge industries around their awareness.

3- Homicide is inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks". And even more important to cover where those crimes happen disproportionately compared to other comparable countries.

> Until its less of a problem?

As if the problem with people being fat is that there's not enough reporting of them being fat?

I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on.

Why is homicide inherently more newsworthy than "people get heart attacks"? It completely depends on how much homicide is happening, how many heart attacks are happening, and what we as a society think is reasonable for either fatality. Given how few people are dying with homicides, how many people are dying from a preventable disease -- which is what the main article here says -- I think there can absolutely more attention put on the preventable disease. Particularly at a moment in time when funding for healthcare by the government is being dramatically reduced.

> I still don't get what you think is "newsworthy", or what "should" be reported on.

That people die from heart disease and cancer, especially when they get older, is common knowledge. That's what makes it less newsworthy versus a local homicide story that is not common knowledge.

That there is some amount of local homicide is common knowledge. See, I can do it too :)

The question about "what should be reported on more" is really about "which thing is worth spending more resources / attention / publicity" on, and I personally would put that towards a preventable disease that far too many people are dying of.

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