Yep. Capitalism-induced feedback loop. That said, more people are going to pay attention to a newscast about terrorism than one about, say, how the yellow dye used in legal pads is poisonous.
If you think about it, I'm actually more likely to accidentally ingest a legal pad.
Instead of
<likelihood of thing being in the news> = f(<probability of dying from thing>)
It's more like:
<likelihood of thing being in the news> = f(<probability of dying from thing>) * g(<scariness of dying from thing>)