Media Incentives To Spread Fear, Doom and Hype

The problem with having instilled vast, society-level fear is that it’s the opposite of herd immunity: it makes it easier to whip up new fear.

Fear sells newspapers. The media is cheering for a “second wave” because it’s good for their top lines.

This is what we have taught the media to do by obsessively clicking on this panic porn and disaster narrative. Businesses respond to incentives in predictable ways.

There is no great mystery here on why the media is acting in the manner that it is. It’s just dollars and cents.

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