When viewing the front page of CNN today (November 14, 2017) I saw a lot of “Democrats say” “Republicans remark” and “Sessions says” headlines. ( http://www.cnn.com/ ) This, to me, seemed to exemplify a sensationalist, reality TV inspired reporting style. That is to say, that interpersonal or political drama was at the forefront. It was easy to reimagine the headlines as clickbait articles: “You won’t believe what Jeff Sessions just said!” Or, “Is Trump too unstable for nukes?” Although relegated to the far-right column (direction not political) were stories of greater direct public import like “Kratom has ‘deadly risks’ FDA warns”, most other headlines concerned comments and not decisions or events.

Perhaps in the electronic age news media like CNN race to find any comment to fill their front pages, but what was conspicuously absent was news of the shooting at a Rancho Tehama elementary school. ( http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-norcal-elementary-school-shooting-20171114-story.html ) I actually got an update notification and I expected to see the shooting mentioned, but the banner that fell instead read “AG Sessions said it would be wrong to use department to retaliate against political opponents.” 

To be fair, I did find a small mention of the Rancho Tehama shooting after visiting the U.S. specific section, but even that headline was listed after “McConnell: ‘I believe the women.’ Moore should go.” ( http://www.cnn.com/us ) Five other headlines about Roy Moore preempted the shooting story as well. Perhaps CNN waited for all the facts to surface before putting the shooting on its front page (which it did eventually), but at least before 12:18 there was almost no sign of the story. Honest question: why was this?