Talk:Selective reporting

"Statistically, the shooting was irrelevant"
Irrelevant to what? What's the message here? That school shootings shouldn't be major news stories because they only directly affect one community? 14:53, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * That it is incredibly unlikely for a shooting to affect you or your family; they are very rare events. 15:22, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * While I'm not 100% certain about the wording, that's what it means. It's very unlikely, but because it was bigged up in the media, people think it's incredibly common, it's not. 15:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't recall any of the coverage of Columbine suggesting that this was a common occurrence, although a lot of people claimed it was indicative of the way society &/or youth culture is heading.  16:55, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * No, it's not that the reporting says it's common. Selective reporting is that the very fact that it is reported makes it seem more common, because the incidents that are contrary to it aren't reported (i.e., no news channel reports on the thousands of schools, whom every day don't experience a shooting, yet alone a multiple one). But still, I'm not 100% behind it as an example although it did contribute a lot to paranoia around something that just doesn't really happen often enough to be too concerned about. 17:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)