We know Rwanda is the story that matters. Yet still we turn to Rooney...

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But this challenge cannot fall on journalists alone. The best of the award submissions were about as good as they could be, and still I know the vast bulk of the audience would prefer to read or watch something else.

This is partly a problem of all foreign news. Our curiosity about those far away is finite. As one old-time US hack used to say, "Americans will do anything for Latin America except read about it." But, more deeply, there seems to be a limit to our capacity to absorb human suffering. We know terrible, heartbreaking things are going on all over the world; but to face them, for more than a fleeting glimpse, is more than we can take. This is true of both ends of the market: sure, Sun readers would prefer to read 10 pages on the World Cup than a single story about TB in Africa, but the Guardian's traffic figures suggest our own online readers are much the same. Full story...

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