I am about to read Taleb’s Black Swan book. According to Wikipedia, a Black Swan is an event that has a large-impact and it is hard-to-predict because of its improbability.
Mahalonobis’ Blog writes about how Black Swans are highlighted in the media:
Yet that is exactly what is endemic in journalism, highlighting bizarre hypotheticals because they are merely possible, as opposed to probable. That’s what is behind lotto ticket buyers–you could win!