Newspapers are basically racing to answer the question "What's the worst thing that happened in the world today?" It makes sense to know this on a local level.

Newspapers are basically racing to answer the question "What's the worst thing that happened in the world today?" It makes sense to know this on a local level. If a robbery happened 4 houses away, that's useful information. On a national/global level, this information is a big negative. It's emotionally taxing and 99 times out of 100, it doesn't affect you in any way. The only problem with this is US national politics has began to dominate a lot of my conversations, so you look like a idiot when you're not read up on the latest headlines.