Tuchman's law

states that :

"The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold.

"Disaster is rarely as pervasive as it seems from recorded accounts. The fact of being on the record makes it appear continuous and ubiquitous whereas it is more likely to have been sporadic both in time and place. Besides, persistence of the normal is usually greater than the effect of the disturbance, as we know from our own times."

"After absorbing the news of today, one expects to face a world consisting entirely of strikes, crimes, power failures, broken water mains, stalled trains, school shutdowns, muggers, drug addicts, neo-Nazis, and rapists. The fact is that one can come home in the evening - on a lucky day - without having encountered more than one or two of these phenomena."

People feel 'not very safe at all' in Bideford because of the way the media talk of violent crime (which remains very rare, especially in Bideford). The current financial crisis, being largely a crisis of confidence, is worsened by EOTWAWKI-style reporting.

(EOTWAWKI - end of the world as we know it)

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