Remember back when Donald Trump didn't dominate the news cycle and we had that summer where it seemed like every other day, the media was reporting about another kid left in a car that died? I think it was 2012 -- 2014 - something like that. The way the media carried on about it, people were running around like crazy asking what on earth the world was coming to and why this 'epidemic' was occurring.
Of course, if you actually bothered to fact check the media sensationalists, you'd notice that there wasn't any actual 'epidemic.' First, damn near no children die this way per year in the US (an average of 39 per year in a population of 331 million), but secondly, there was no 'surge' or 'epidemic' or insanity going on. In fact, it was just like any other year. In 2014, slightly more children died than average (44) but that wasn't even a high since 1998, and you have to take into account that they were reporting these as they happened, meaning that they weren't seeing some enormous uptick in real time (they'd have no way of knowing that the high would ultimately occur, if it was in fact 2014).
Instead what happened is that one story (As it is local news) engendered a large response, other media outlets noticed that response, and then they decided to search for other stories from wherever they could find to report them to get more clicks. It had absolutely nothing to do with being particularly newsworthy, or a particularly noble thing to report to try and "save the children" and everything to do with selling more papers, and getting more clicks.
Indeed, if you think that they did this out of some sense of altruism or civic duty, consider that since Trump has been elected (and thus, there are far juicier stories to tell), children left in cars have been at or above average, and over the 2014 high in 3 of the 4 years since 2016 when he was in his primaries. 2020 obviously being far lower as fewer parents are forgetting to drop their kids off at daycare on their way to work, given that fewer kids are going to daycare, and fewer parents are going in to work. Anyway, more kids died while Trump was in office, but there were better stories to tell and it wasn't as slow of a news year, so the media barely discussed it.
To me, this really demonstrates what many are saying when they tell you the media is full of it. You simply can't trust that the stories they're peddling are what they are at face value. I would encourage you to just visit CNN AND Fox News every morning and start observing what "stories" each reports, and doesn't report, and also what "angle" they take on them, and you'll quickly find you need to do your own research.
As one aside, it is interesting to me that after all the attention the issue of children dying in cars received in 2012-2014, 2015 did see a (pre-2020) record low (24), so the media can have an influence on behavior, which is good in the case of children being left in cars, but very troubling to think of how they can influence more insidious designs.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/motor-vehicle-safety-issues/hotcars/
