Bad News Travels Fast

As far as I know the news has always had two main yet often conflicting and intertwining objectives:

1. To inform- To present the facts
2. To entertain- To get viewers (i.e money)

For as long as news has been around, (give or take the very beginning of humanity), news has been subject to man's cruel and selfish nature. To be the one to say "Hey, did you hear? Michael Jackson died this morning!" will get you far more listening ears than say, "Oh, did you know that the Uniting Church of Britain built a well in Uganda today?"

We like tragedy, scandal and death because it's intriguing. We like to shock and be shocked because it emits an instant reaction. And the attention gained from being the conveyer of these messages is all too addictive. Like the old saying goes, "Bad news travels fast." And the modern news media knows this all too well.

Professional news in it's most idealistic form exists to inform and educate- To tell it's audience what is happening in a fair and unbiased way. But the news business is just that, a business. A business run by humans no less. And humans by their very nature are biased and unfair.
So as the news is becoming more and more publicly regulated through formats like Facebook and Twitter, the tactics of professional news organisations are becoming more desperate for views, and dollars. And how do they get dollars? You guessed it! By giving us what we want to see. And what we want to see is death, blood and gore.

Yes news is getting more voyeuristic, but only in the sense that our demand for voyeuristic content is increasing. It's always been there, there is no denying that. Modern media is just testing how far they can go to get a buck before we as viewers say, "hey wait, this is actually kind of wrong" and stop watching.

So how far is too far?
Well, it's all relative, subjective.
And the news is supposedly objective.
It's gotta be us who draw the line.