With the idea of examining how the media worldwide perceives certain events, I began to daily record deaths from newspapers around the globe. Every day, for hours on end until two or three in the morning, I read articles and scribbled down headlines from newspapers – as long as they mentioned deaths. It’s been 14 years, and about 8000 pages of a diary of the world have been filled – that’s about 8 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica (2011 – 2025). In those 14 years, you witness how the climate changes – more and more people are dying due to wildfires, floods, droughts, landslides, avalanches. You might think, “Could it not be true?” But throughout those 14 years, and across all those pages, you read it quite literally. You see how migration routes shift and where migrants drown or are shot, which wars arise, and which ones are silenced in certain media. Where terrorist attacks occur, and what kind of terror. What extremism emerges where, and in whose name is someone being murdered? You even see the circumflex accent disappearing – even the language changes.

You wonder why 3 dead Americans from Legionnaires’ disease make news here, and 3000 deaths from dengue in India / Pakistan / Bangladesh do not. Why is a train crash with 15 deaths in Germany covered in every news broadcast here for five days, while exactly the same day a train crash with 15 deaths in South Africa quietly passes by? How is our perception shaped?

You quickly forget that every number is a tragedy. That behind each digit is a grieving family. A seat that remains empty at the table, someone who doesn’t come home anymore. In every title there’s tons of information. I only take notes. The world is making a mess of it. Please continue, if it makes it to the media, I’ll jot it down.