Tragedies

I've been engrossed in the coverage about the Haiti. I wondered if there's something ghoulish in me that I always get so obsessed by that sort of tragedy. Like the people that slow down and gape at a car wreck (which I don't do). But I've been thinking about it today and wondered why I'm like this. I very well know I'm not alone but that's no answer. Some people deliberately avoid all that raw pain on the television. But it is that raw pain that's compelling. I spend most of my time wondering what's going on inside people's heads. Trying to understand people's behavior. Then during a disaster, it's all displayed in all its intensity on the screen. Equally interesting is how the reporters react. Sometimes they seem like its a practiced compassion and sometimes one genuinely gets choked up.
Even as I'm writing this, it seems heartless to discuss all that genuine pain I've seen in the last few days like this. But on the other hand, it is genuinely compelling for me to watch and it informs my writing, I think. I am a watcher of other people's behavior mroe than a participant and then maybe I bring some of that to my writing. And is it genuinely any better to just ignore it?