That's kind of how news works. It does whatever it can to grab our attention and keep us as long as possible. So it shouldn't be surprising when we read a news article and feel the way the article intended for us to feel. The way I work around this is by just not reading news articles unless they have to do with some programming concept I'm interested in learning more about. Hence my being at HN more often than reddit.
Totally agree with you. Hacker news is pretty satisfying for me, but I have many other interests. I think there is tons of potential for news outlets that don't just dredge the horror...
Open to non tech suggestions (ars, crunch i can find myself thanks)...