The Law of Telly

In contrast to the hard sciences, which, I guess, they call the hard sciences for a reason, the social sciences, it is sometimes observed, have not come up with an awful lot of general laws. But how about this, from media studies expert Ben Goldacre (italics mine):

“Mounting financial pressures have led to a surge in inexperienced cyclists taking to the roads,”say [insurance company] LV in their press release: “resulting in a 29% increase in road accidents involving cyclists in the past six months.” It’s topical, it involves death and fear, it’s dressed in the cloak of statistical authority: this is totally going on the telly.

Sure, this idea needs a bit of clarification (are we talking interaction effects here?), followed by rigorous empirical tests, but it certainly looks like a promising candidate.