None of which happened in most people's local areas. Stop reading national news on a regular basis. Focus on your small little life, your family, your neighborhood, your little area.
Of course when you cast a wide net nationally or globally, there will always be negative things happening, and then if you mainly focus on those events, you'll act as if negative things are the only things.
I think he is wrong because being informed and aware of what has happened in the world does not equate to "mentally masturbating to disaster porn". We do have a real problem with sensationalized media, but the solution is not to just be uninformed...
I sometimes hear similar logic as an argument against things like funding science research: "Why spend money and time on a deep space observatory? We can never get to those places in space anyway"
I mean, I get it, but this is the same logic that is sometimes used for school shootings. It's abhorrent to ignore a large increase compared to other places just because it is still a small chance, and therefore do nothing.
I like making these less likely, but I know my government's just gonna pump more money into cops and surveillance rather than do anything effective like making people less disenfranchised and desperate.