According to a study news concerning terrorist attacks, natural disasters or potential threats becomes more negative, imprecise and dramatic as it passes from one person to another. Strangely, the negative amplification continues even if at some point the original news is proposed. For example, if two victims in a terrible ferry disaster become twenty by the time the story reaches the tenth person, and at this point a respected source then says that the number of victims is two, by the time the story reaches a further three people the number is again 20. “It’s raining at the airport where we are about to land” becomes “Storm at the airport”. “A few kids with a tummy ache at kindergarten” becomes” Many children with food poisoning”. The fact that content is modified for the worse appears to be an effect of natural selection where it is better to err on the side of pessimism than optimism. Our survival was made possible by the fact that our predecessors over reacted to bad news rather than under reacted. The news in its original ‘size’ would be less effective in creating a collective response than if it were exaggerated. To be sure that a response to a negative event be adequate the info referred to the event must be manipulated and the true news must be ignored. In certain cases, news must be useful rather than true.