First some perspective. “In 2020, more than 5,100 kids under 18 were shot … and more than 1,300 died.” And yet, you’ve heard less about all of those deaths combined than the killing of Gabrielle Petito. Vanity Fair: Gabby Petito, Online Detectives, and the Queasy Places Our True-Crime Obsessions Have Taken Us. Petito was a social media star and the pieces of her case are rolling out in real time. I get why internet users became obsessed. More worrisome is the way that what’s popular on social media drives what makes headlines. Every editor knows the endless and exhaustive coverage of a single murder case, in a country where murder is the national pastime, is beyond absurd. But they just can’t stop themselves.

+ NYT: (Gift Article for ND readers): How the Case of Gabrielle Petito Galvanized the Internet. (I’d like to see a piece on how a galvanized Internet galvanized newsrooms.)