Most critics of journalists, and many journalists themselves, would agree with you that profit-motive is a main factor in deciding (consciously and unconsciousl

Most critics of journalists, and many journalists themselves, would agree with you that profit-motive is a main factor in deciding (consciously and unconsciously) what gets covered as news. And stories about crime have long been clickbait before "clicks" were a thing, e.g. the aphorism, "if it bleeds, it leads". Here's one interesting writeup about the "Murder of the Century" in 1897, which is said to have sparked a new era of tabloid reporting: https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_war.php https://archives.cjr.org/review/headless_body_in_newspaper_w...