cyclones and bad media

I'm not a huge news person. I don't know popular actors and actresses; I don't always know movies or songs; I don't do politics, mostly cause I just don't understand it. But I try and have a good idea of what's going on in current events, if only so I don't look like an idiot. To keep this habit up, I added a tab to my Internet Explorer that opened up a news site. After a few tries to find an appropriate for me newsite, I found one. And I do actually know what's going on. Alot of the time I'll see a headline and alot of the time I don't care so I don't read it but sometimes I do see something of interest.
For example, last Sunday I read about a cyclone in the small country of Burma. I'm sensitive to stuff like that, so it caught my eye and pulled at my hearstrings (though I'd rather not use that phrase). I watched it for a day or two, noticing that everytime I checked, the death toll continued to rise. But everyone around me seemed completely oblivious. This ticked me off. I'd been watching the news every night and there was nothing mentioned. The radio never said anything about it, and the paper didn't have a word dedicated to it.
It wasn't until almost Friday when they began to estimate an eventual death toll of 100,000 that our local newspaper ran a story and the local news covered the event.
Maybe something like this shouldn't tick me off like it did, but it did. Why are so we caught up in the presidential race of another country, but we can't pay attention to thousands of people dying in another one? Is politics that exciting that we forego any attention to "real events" We get all hyped up when one soldier dies In a war, where death is only expected but give no attention to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. Does the fact that they live across the world, in a poor authoritarian regime make them any less important? Personally, I really don't think so.
That was my rant: Support 'em.