*resists urge to make Northerner comment*
You've got a point SW, but it wouldn't be so dramatic or in our faces as it is now. It would most likely have been a paragraph or two in a newspaper or a brief mention on the evening radio bulletin sixty or so years ago, now days in the era of rolling news broadcasts, things are a) made to sound more dramatic [to ensure viewing] and b) everything is breaking news, much more attention grabbing than a newspaper article or radio section.