The News We Want is the News We Get?

Returning briefly to the last post. None of my argument offers even the vaguest insight into how we decide the news topics which interest us. Why is it that we appear to find the process of separating siamese twins so fascinating, for example? (At the time of writing, this topic is running in the numer one world slot in Google News.)

Neurosurgeons in Singapore worked through last night to open the skull bone shared by Iranian twins in the second stage of an unprecedented and risky operation to separate the sisters.
Ladan and Laleh Bijani, 29, from Shiraz, who share a skull cavity but have individual brains, are the first adults to undergo such surgery. They are going through with the marathon operation, despite doctors warning that chances of total success are slim. The operation, which is expected to last at least two days, began just after 8am yesterday when the sisters underwent magnetic resonance imaging tests. They were accompanied by seven close friends, part of a growing army of well-wishers who have set up camp at Singapore's Raffles Hospital. "The scans were completed at 9.45am and the twins were in good spirits and were laughing with their friends after they were wheeled out from the radiology department," said Prem Kumar Nair, the hospital's corporate services manager.

Eight international experts, 18 local doctors and more than 100 support staff are performing the operation.
Source: The Guardian
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and here:

Iran's President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday sent a message to conjoined Iranian twins Ladan and Laleh Bijani, the state-run television network IRIB reported. Khatami said in the message that he and the whole Iranian nation are praying for the twins whose surgery, the world's first to separate adult twins fused at the head, started Sunday at the Raffles hospital in Singapore. The president, who referred to the 29-year-old twins as "my dear children," expressed optimism that the surgery would be successful. IRIB and the related news network Khabar have allocated their main news to the surgery with constant live contact with the IRIB reporter in Singapore.
Source: Borneo Bulletin
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