Tragedy - simply coffee for some ?

I was in fact struck forcibly by this when the tsunami happened. Eyewitness accounts started pouring out onto television and Net, instant fame was there to be earned by all and sundry, all sorts of people from all over the world started into discussions , mainly about advance warning systems and were the developed countries forewarned, and then about those "exciting" fresh statistics of number of dead and injured. People who had never heard of a tsunami before were very quick in bringing all sorts of rigmarole about nature's revenge and God's hand as the causes. In India it is usual to blame mankind's iniquities in the present age for everything tragic on a big scale , as if people used not to procreate in the past( going by the Indian logic that sex is something bad).

Well, I'm veering from my topic. The thing that struck me was that most of the people were so easily discussing it, seeing visuals of people bleeding and dying even as they were taking their breakfasts in front of a TV, discussing over coffee table all the facts, views and opinions that they gathered from news channels and newspapers - was it not sort of a cruel indifference ? People are dying and you enjoy that sight, you find it something exciting in the routine humdrum of life, the ratings of news channels shoot up(which means that many of the people, seeking some change from their daily soap operas, have now turned to these tragic soaps) - how can somebody enjoy this ? And is reporting of hurricanes, earthquakes, and tsunamis also not voyeuristic by many channels - most want to show compelling scenes of damage done, of the power of the natural element , rather than transform the news into a simple, sober , matter-of-factly and humanitarian capsule.

Sensationalism , if not curbed by the channels and if the public itself is being carried away by it, should be curbed by then what, the government? A broadcasting policy, uniform for all ?