I think one of the reasons are that there are more video cameras around and the Internet facilitates the distribution. I don’t think that fifteen years ago a car wash would generally have a good video system and even if it did, the tape might end up in police hands, then only be aired locally. Fifteen years ago, soldiers didn’t have a small video camera and an Internet connection – the puppy would have been thrown off a cliff and that’d be it.
Also, I feel that the Internet news services need plenty of these headlines to lure you into clicking on their news link. , just like the teasers used to do for the nightly news.
