Does negative news give you the "hee-bee-gee-bees"?

Whenever a news story with a negative slant appears via the media, does it make you just a little paranoid?

"Tiger escapes from the SF Zoo and mauls and kills a young man". Would that give you a feeling that maybe it could happen at a zoo near you?

Our nation's bridges are in questionable shape and several lives have been lost as a result of bridges collapsing. Does it make you think a little everytime you are about to travel over a bridge?

Unfortunately, the news media likes to use negative stories to shock people into believing "this could happen to you!". Does this type of news reporting make you feel unsafe in certain situations? Does paranoia set in when the stories are repeated over and over again?

Bob

I read these stories with horror, but have never thought too much about whether the same thing could happen to me. Just "There but for the Grace of God go I.".

I have too many other real things to worry about...I figure when your number is up, your number is up! or should that be a

Unfortunately, as is the case too much of the time, it is believed that these boys taunted the tiger. The animal retaliated as animals do and lost his life in the process. Although, I certainly don't mean that the boys "deserved what they got", it is an incident that was totally avoidable. Obviously the area was not restrictive enough to keep the tiger inside. We had a situation here about twenty years ago when a keeper lost his life to one of the tigers in our zoo. However, it came through a glass window in the door to the area where he was fed. That problem was corrected but visitors have never been in danger because the habitat for all cats is incredibly well set up to protect the public, as well as the animals while allowing the animals a free roaming area in a somewhat "natural" habitat.

It still bothers me a little to cross the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, crossing from Pinellas County to Sarasota County. I think because of the old Skyway bridge that collapsed several years ago and cars and a bus went into Tampa Bay.
The new bridge has very low sides and it there was an accident on the bridge the cars could very easily flip over the sides.

It makes one wonder about the mentality that creates such designs for construction. It is pretty scary to go across bridges and causeways to begin with, but, when you see those low barriers - yikes! You hold on for dear life and hope you don't make a stupid mistake or someone behind you doesn't slam into you.

It still bothers me a little to cross the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, crossing from Pinellas County to Sarasota County. I think because of the old Skyway bridge that collapsed several years ago and cars and a bus went into Tampa Bay.
The new bridge has very low sides and it there was an accident on the bridge the cars could very easily flip over the sides.

I think also there were not enough restrictions on the boys taunting the tiger! The animal has no "reason" and therefore will follow its instinct.

I don't despair about it maybe happening to me.
But I would LOVE to see positive "it could happen to you" stories being reported too!!!

Knowing the media will blow everything out of proportion and really only reports on the negative news I don't watch much news and no it doesn't have an effect on me.

You want to see the world coming to an end? Come to Milw during a snow storm. They have reporters at the salt pile, out in the field and everywhere else they can find to put them. On live shots the reporters scoup up a handful of snow to show how bad it is.

This is really getting out of hand. I have people come into work saying we should close when we get 3-5" of snow. They use words like life threating conditions etc. Hello it's WI we get snow. I would love to see these people in Alaska!

Speaking of which does Alaska have any lighthouses? hmmmmm.