There is a belief cultivated under systems of violent oppression that some deaths are unavoidable, while other deaths, which go against the grain of power, are avoidable, and therefore exceptional, and remarkable. The liberal-type mindset regards them all as "tragic," by which they mean, "bad," but cannot help having more and more complicated feelings and judgments about the latter, because in their heart they take the former for granted.

Those people may not deserve to die, but we all knew they were going to. These people, regardless of what they may have done prior to dying, were expected to live, and their deaths are unsettling and prompt the asking of questions. This is the perspective of the presumed audience of all western mass media, and a pattern that all "educated" and "informed" people are trained to follow.

It's hard to break that pattern; it's hard not to feel more comfortable with the evil we expect. Doing so implies either feeling drastically more visceral horror, or killing off some of our empathy.