Obssesive Terrorism Reportage - A vestige of Human Evolution?

     Simon Jenkins argued on BBC Newsnight, that commercial news outlets are giving reports of terrorist activity too much attention. "The prominence given them now is," he asserts, "aiding and abetting terrorism. You should choose to treat it as a crime." By treating terrorist acts merely as crimes, he means that they ought not to get any more media coverage than any other proportional criminal act would receive. They would not, therefore, be treated with splashy headlines, promoted with smartphone news alerts, covered by live feed, nor get all the other intensive forms of coverage that currently exist.

      I agree in principle, but I do not agree that the BBC, nor any other news outlet, should be blamed in particular. They are all merely capitalising upon an innate quality of human nature to improve their business. And this 'innate behaviour' has not been publicly discussed and, of course, therefore, no public consensus nor policy has been created around it. 
     Innate human nature, us having evolved as social animals, disposes us to be intensely curious about any breaches of the peace and to crowd in to see what's going on - take sides - and to throw a few stones or sticks into the fray ourselves. I would say it's an evolved trait wired into our brains. 
     I happened recently, to have taken my sons to the HK Botanical Gardens where there is, among many primate displays, a cage of lemurs from which periodically arises sudden, very loud commotions resulting from conflict. I noticed my own inner urge to immediately rush over, when the hubbub began, to see what was up. When loitering later in the vicinity, I observed all the other visitors within earshot of the lemurs doing the same during subsequent commotions. It amazed me how they would all scramble over in unison. I had the impression of these civilised sojourners suddenly having had their modern human individuality overthrown by a deep animal nature. Silks, handbags, mobile devices and polished manners all cast to the wayside, revealing the naked apes within.  
     Human behaviour, I believe, arises a great deal more from deep, evolved hard-wiring than we generally realise. All of these built-in behavioural traits must have served humans well during the hundreds of thousands or millions of years of our evolution. But, within the modern world, a good number of them are no longer helpful. Culture develops structures that moderate or channel these qualities to render them less destructive or even useful. It may have been a great evolutionary strategy for males, for example, to father as many children as possible, with as many different mothers as possible, but such behaviour would be extremely maladaptive throughout the period modern and premodern history, so the institution of marriage developed within most all human cultures to control this primal male urge. But many unconscious mental / behavioural habits continue to serve as stumbling blocks to the development of more peaceful and rational democratic societies. The tendency to gawk, ambulance chase and to pay inordinate attention to mad 52 year-olds mowing down pedestrians with rented cars is one of them. 
     The news alert from BBC flashing on the screen of my phone is akin to the first screeches from 3 trees over. Our devouring eyes all fall ravenously upon our 'live feeds' - watching greedily - and soon also joining in to throw a stone or two of our own. Reams of scrolling comments trolling and cross-trolling: 'Must have been a Muslim again' or 'Don't be racist, assuming right away that it's a Muslim!!.' Most comments are similar revealing the tribal affiliation of the poster. 
     News outlets are just facilitating this evolved human trait. Rather than reactively blame them, we must dialogue as a society and consciously structure news reporting systems and norms that curb this particular human trait.  As Simon Jenkins must surely be correct that terrorism reportage, as it is presently structured, serves mostly to further the ends of the terrorists - to maintain and strengthen violent trends.