They have the best stories: the thieves who tried to rob a bar hosting a biker club meeting and the baby born into and through a toilet on a train to be picked after Mom stopped the train and went back for her baby are just the two I saw today. They're always reporting stuff like that.
I recognize the value of a public forum for the announcement of public events like marriages, births, land sales, and bankruptcies, and I get that there are thing we need to know for pragmatic reasons: Baghdad is not a great tourist trap right now, etc.
What I don't understand is the type of alarmist reporting that often preoccupies American reporting.