Why is this news? When I was in fourth grade a girl in my class died in her sleep. That occurred in the 1950’s. This isn’t news, it’s tragedy.
“Why is this news?”
There used to be a whole news genre called “bus plunge.” This was because the newspaper was arranged in two-inch columns. The type setting process was such that if they had a two paragraph by two-inch blank space, they had to fill it with something. They’d go to the “wire” services and find a story about a bus somewhere in the world which had plunged off a mountain road. The story was formulaic and could be made to perfectly fit the available space.
Today the physical problems of printing the news are long past. Today’s problem is clicks. There are tables that give an editor the number of clicks he’ll get by putting key words in the title. Programs count the clicks and that determines the story titles and what gets covered. This is why you never see titles like, “Wonderful thing happens to heterosexual mother of three.” But “Child dies” will get a guaranteed number of clicks.
At least for the moment, news stories need to be loosely based on things that actually happen. Children die. That’s worth X clicks and Y revenue.