"Could" - the new media c-word

Have you noticed that under every scary headline about the future of the global economy, there is at least one key sentence that hinges on the word "could", as in "the future of the euro could be determined by the greek elections".  Of course, these statements are all strictly true, they are just spun to be alarmist and therefore catch the attention of the jaded media consumer.  It is also true that you could win the lottery on Thursday, it's just that the statement tells you very little.  An informative statement would give you some meaningful asessment of the likelihood of winning the lottery on Thursday.  It is, of couse, much more difficult (and let's face it less interesting) to make such judgements.  Much more exciting to just go with that magical word "could".  My advice is to discount any media story that relies on it.