"The most powerful concern about bias we encountered in our roundtables was the perception that news organizations had a 'negative' bias. A school superintendent complained about the 'normalization of radical behavior' because it was so often prominently covered -- that is, reporters too often seemed to seek out the most extreme views and ignored the broad middle, where most opinion resides and where decisions typically are made."
~page 49 of Haiman's Best Practices for Newspaper Journalists
I can't help but wonder if the reason for this happening is because of the definition of the word "newsworthy"--most specifically the definition that the more out of the ordinary the story is the better. It goes to show that we can never take anything like this as if it were set in stone. There are gray areas. Yes, unusual stories may be considered newsworthy, but they are not good representations of what is happening. They are still important, but they should not take over so much so that the "ordinary" good news is always ignored. Of course, there would have to be some news hook with these other stories, but I'm sure it is possible to do so.