I come from a small community. A tiny one. Every crime that occurs is in our local newspaper. There's no real reason to put it there, but the purpose is the same. Regardless of what the minority says the majority of the public wants to be informed about this type of happening. True, I do feel it's going completely overboard to broadcast every tiny little detail such as the hostages favorite kind of soup or their preferred brand of shampoo, but those things are typically found strictly in broadcast news who's livelihood depends on the amount of people watching. And the better informed people feel they are, the more likely they are to watch.

I'm not saying that newspapers don't do this, hell I just said my local paper does it. However, most respectable publications do offer a wider variety of news than CNN or MSNBC, and they go into greater detail than 30 second spots and blurbs. They also publish public opinion, and tailor themselves to what their particular readers want to see, which isn't nearly as similar to broadcast news as you might think.

I guess what I mean to say is you can't blame the media for what they do. They only give the public what it asks for.