Should We Be Afraid To Be Afraid?

There's the saying that says sex sells, but it has become quite evident that fear sells almost just as well. Much of the news involves conjuring up fear by using scare tactics. To a certain extent it is the media's job to inform people about certain dangers in society, but how much is too much. Also, how much research really goes into all of this reporting. Can it be possible that there's so many negative and dangerous things in the world? Things have to be cleaner and more sanitary and safer now than they were 100, 200, and even 1000 years ago, right? Also, you definitely have more scare stories than you have retracting stories saying something like, "Sorry, but apparently that thing we said could kill won't kill you." I was watching Stossel last week, and I was pretty surprised by some of the things that were discussed. Such as, there are more risky toxins in natural peanut butter than in artificial sweeteners. How are there  really such conflicting sides to things like this? There was also a later segment in the show that dealt with vaccines. Maybe the most astounding but not necessarily most surprising thing was that local TV news, broadcast and cable TV news are approximately 90% inaccurate when reporting on certain sciences and studies, and Wikipedia has been found to be more factually accurate. However, it does seem people have become somewhat immune to a lot of these types of stories because if people really believed everything they heard then I can imagine people would be scared to leave their house. Ironically they would also probably be terrified of all of the silent killers found in and around their home. I understand this type of reporting won't ever change, and it is important to some extent. However, it would be nice if there were some type of reasonableness restored to the media, or maybe at least we as viewers can become more cynical or care even less.

Also I know it has to be somewhat surprising that a show on a Fox network would have a show denouncing scare tactics in the media, but you got to give Stossel some credit for what he often reports on. He's not your average reporter, and I find his shows pretty interesting and fascinating.

Here's a link to his website where you can find other clips from this show and others.
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4393452/scare-tactics-of-media/