"I'm not sure there's any conscious individual intent past the cynical awareness that "If it bleeds, it leads." And this unacknowledged, unrecognized hunger may be a far worse problem than deliberate malice could ever be."It's a bunch of factors. There's an element of crusading ("We're going to shame the nation into action this time!") that heterodynes with the unconscious "This is ratings gold!", which all combines with an underlying current of "Well, if we don't cover it, those guys at $COMPETING_NETWORK will, so if we're gonna cover it, we might as well do it first and best!"
I mean, watching a grieving parent bawl his eyes out over his dead son in front of the camera? That's GREAT TELEVISION.
And we're all...to a greater or lesser degree...a little vulture-y. The meta-conversation here is still paying attention.
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