Crime, murder and mass shootings have dominated headlines this year. Just over the weekend, a shooting in Cincinnati wounded nine people, and another in Detroit killed one and wounded four.
But the full crime data tells a different story. Nationwide, shootings are down 4 percent this year compared to the same time last year. In big cities, murders are down 3 percent. If the decrease in murders continues for the rest of 2022, it will be the first year since 2018 in which they fell in the U.S.
Much of the discrepancy between what the general public "feels" and what is true can be blamed on what I often emphasize: most news is bad news. A casual TV viewer might think most of eastern Kentucky is under water right now, for instance, though the reality is that the affected areas are not that extensive. They are bad, don't get me wrong, but narrow valleys, poor infrastructure, and historically high amounts of rain have combined to create disaster for a small percentage of the population.
I assume many politicians will campaign on fear-based platforms, using old stats and inflated stats and random anecdotes to motivate voters to choose them. Most voters are not really paying attention to daily news and most certainly don't understand broader trends. This ignorance (and I include myself as among the ignorant in terms of many trends) is at the very heart of politics.
On a related note, today is the first day of school in Douglas County, and most parents rate the schools their children attend quite high. At the same time, they rate all other schools quite low. After all, they have experience with their own schools and the learning and fun their own kids are having. But they read about the rare tragedy or poor teacher or corrupt school board member and come away with negative thoughts about education generally.
Were I a politician who was working hard to better society, I would quickly become depressed and frustrated by just how difficult it is to communicate the truth to voters.
There will be no headlines about a slight drop in the percentage of shootings nationwide.
There are no headlines about the 378 Americans dying from Covid each day, adding to the over 1 million deaths previously... just in the U.S.
There were (officially) four mass shootings in America yesterday, with three total deaths among the 21 total victims. One of those was that Cincinnati shooting mentioned above. The others were in Pittsburgh, Birmingham, and Atlanta. I did not see even a news brief on any of those.
You would have to label those shootings as "bad news," but we now need our news to be REALLY bad to even make a dent in the zeitgeist.
This past weekend, two local high school students about to enter their senior year were killed by a driver under the influence... senselessly, tragically. Their parents' lives are forever altered, and the first day of the school year at their high school becomes a day of mourning more than one of celebration of a new year.
But the other 2,300 students at Castle View HS are in the building. They survived the weekend. Everyone must quickly move on.
Until the next senseless tragedy or natural disaster or political outrage (these are not equal, I know).
Last week was a great week for President Biden, for Democrats, and for progress.
Biden's approval numbers will likely drop, much like gas prices.
The bias of the media toward "bad news" is tough to overcome.
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