The Media IS the Enemy of the People

• ............. life has been getting better in pretty much every way. Around the globe, improved health care has dramatically reduced infant and maternal mortality, and children are now better fed, better educated, and less abused. Workers make more money, are injured less frequently, and retire earlier. In the United States, fewer people are poor, while elsewhere in the world, and especially in Asia, billions fewer live in extreme poverty, defined as an income of less than a dollar and ninety cents per day. Statistics show that the world is growing less polluted and has more parks and protected wilderness. “Carbon intensity”—the amount of carbon released per dollar of G.D.P.—has also been falling almost everywhere, a sign that we may be capable of addressing our two biggest challenges, poverty and climate change, simultaneously.
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  .............. globally, there are now fewer victims of murder, war, rape, and genocide..............—accidental deaths (car crashes, lightning strikes) are also in steep decline. Despite what we’re often told, students today report being less lonely than in the past, and, although Americans feel over-scheduled, studies show that men and women alike have substantially more leisure time than their parents did (ten and six hours more per week, respectively).

So why do we think other wise?

The media.

• which focus almost entirely on of-the-moment crises and systematically underreport positive, long-term trends.

The media, much like the public education system, is not focused on present reality.

The media, much like the public education system, is ill serving the public.