MG Siegler, on the real motives behind the live coverage of the explosions during the Boston Marathon that ran in most tech sites as events unfolded:

At some point, you’d hope that bloggers, as human beings, would be shocked and appauled enough by what’s unfolding before their eyes that they would lay down their keyboards and stop playing the pageview game, if only for a few hours. Instead, I’m afraid the opposite instincts kicked in. To paraphrase Dr. Ian Malcolm from _Jurassic Park_: they were so preoccupied with whether or not they _could_ that they didn't stop to think if they _should_.

Well said.