News is qualitative, it should be quantitative
Warning, this is a small rant, but a useful one.
News report on facts and events while omiting statistic and numeric trends leading to a bias depiction of the world that overemphasizes rare remarquable events.
Disclamer: Most of the news I will use as example is from french news outlets, but the message I am trying to convey applied to all news in developed countries.
Example 1
I think this is a story from March 2026, but let's be real, Israel and Iran have been at war for at least 50 years, so this is more or less timeless.
Fact: Iran is launching missiles towards Israel Stat: The number of missiles Iran is sending over time since the beginning of the war is trending downwards.
The fact "a salvo of missiles was sent" hides the stat "there is a downwards trend".
Example 2
This is a story from May 2026
Fact: Hundreds arrested and dozens of police injured after Champions League riots in France Stat: In total, there are about 449 800 known cases physical violence is french a year. A 100 of arrest is less than 1 percent of that, it is basically a non-event.
This number of 449 800 comes from the french ministry of the interior and reports numbers from 2024. Note that some events might not be recorded and the total might be higher.
As seen in the report, most violence commited is done within a couple, but is a lot less flashy than "riots on the street".
As somebody living in Paris, I have been outside on the street multiple times during football games including during this Champion League game of May without noticing anything special.
I can find a lot more headlines like that. They mention a specific event that indeed happened, but putting this much emphasis on it is a misrepresentation of the current state of our world.
A lot of news, especially coming from 24/7 TV channels is nothing more than glorified entertainement that people watch with the excuse of "but it's important to stay informed about the current state of the world".
Meanwhile, more important trends are underreported while having a lot more impact in our lives because they are trends, not specific events that happen at a specific time. There is no best moment to report them, especially if you are need to produce news 24/7 without interruptions.
Examples include the massive reduction in the cost of solar energy during the 2010s and 2020s, the potential increase in the price of food due to fertilizer exports in 2026, or the increase in the relative wealth of older generations compared to younger ones.
Moreover, more boring events, like the laws being currently discussed and voted on by the national assembly right now are completely out of the news cycle except some like the change in the retirement age. Take for example this law currently being discussed about the use of AI in video surveillance or any other laws from the website of the senate. Almost all of them have not been reported on, probably because most people would find them boring.
Maybe I've not heard of them because I don't spend all of my time watching TV, but I feel like I've seen more than 30 hours of content related only to the war in the middle east, which while it is still an important topic, should not outshadow local or national events.
All that is to say, no, watching TV or scrolling through Google News or some other infinite feed is not performing your civil duty to say informed but just getting entertained, just like you watch movies, read books or blogs.
If you want to actually stay informed, you need to do more work, like reading economic reports from both the government and other groups, read what laws where passed (and which ones failed to pass) and by whom and finally, see how your daily life is influenced by current laws.
End of rant.
