"If it Bleeds, it Leads"

That's supposedly one of the nuggets of journalistic wisdom that helps to decide which of the day's stories get top billing in a newspaper or other source of news. And it looks like many of today's English language news outlets subscribe to that adage. Want an example? How about the story about the guy who wrote what he thought would be his last words in his own blood? Within the past eight hours, that story has shown up on over 95 different English language websites that distribute news. Yeah, sure, it was awfully romantic of him, and with Valentine's Day less than two weeks away that's bound to strike a chord with lots of folks, but how much coverage do you think it would have gotten if he had done it with a felt-tip pen?