The first problem is, most people don't think, they react. Your post shows some good examples of how we can each help our friends to think things thru. I really like the branching charts, those make things very clear.
The second problem is, the people bringing us the news do not want to de-sensationalize. In fact they want the opposite. Sensational headlines yield viewers and clicks.
It's not even necessarily as cynical as "We need to get clicks"-- leading with the most dramatic interpretation is just good storytelling, and that's deeply ingrained in anybody who writes for a living. That's why it's important for media consumers to know how to parse stories for themselves.
It's amazing how often I've used the fact that there are ~330 million people in the US during the last year or so.
I'm a physicist, so I usually round it up to 400 million...
The first problem is, most people don't think, they react. Your post shows some good examples of how we can each help our friends to think things thru. I really like the branching charts, those make things very clear.
The second problem is, the people bringing us the news do not want to de-sensationalize. In fact they want the opposite. Sensational headlines yield viewers and clicks.
It's not even necessarily as cynical as "We need to get clicks"-- leading with the most dramatic interpretation is just good storytelling, and that's deeply ingrained in anybody who writes for a living. That's why it's important for media consumers to know how to parse stories for themselves.