Austin Bomber

The news gets a bump in ratings when stuff like this happens because it naturally intrigues people. Most people aren't learning anything from the news just repeating the same information about it 24/7, making graphics for the story, showing their name and face constantly, using the sensationalized news voice while you're doing it all. You don't need a name, picture, and things like that to learn what there is to know.

Talking about him when he was still an active bomber is one thing, because people deserve to know that shit is going on. Putting there name and face out there while there they're on the run if you happen to figure that out is one thing because people can potentially help. But even with both those examples it isn't always that black and white, in some cases police determine based on what they know about the specific suspect(s) that it could do more harm to identify them publicity and let them know they've been identified so even that's not always a light decision to make.

I'm not sure what you could learn that requires you see them, know their name, and requires them to be talked about for the bulk of the hour, or if it's cable news, off and on every few stories for hours a day, instead of just run down in a few minutes at most, and once their caught giving a brief rundown then continuing on with the news.

It's not like it takes much to spread the word about a serial killer on the loose in your city. Even if people can't just turn 24 hour news and see it looping all day, the word gets spread pretty much immediately, and the same for when they're caught or dead. Giving the information and moving on. It's not like if you just want the facts that you can't just quickly look up what was reported if you happened to miss it being aired or something.

Instead of spending days, weeks, or more either opening with it and spending the bulk of, or thee hour on that and that alone. Or flashing a graphic, showing the person, being like "and later..." "Coming up..." "In the next hour..." etc. "The person who's striking/struck fear into the city is blah blah blah" plugging it every two minutes until you run some flashy package on it hoping to get some people watch the full hour just to see the story.

You can inform people without sensationalizing, fear mongering, and giving these individuals infamy because even if it wasn't their motivation for doing it, spreading the idea that you can gain infamy, make a point, or even in your own way feel like you're being a martyr for commiting abhorrent acts, isn't a good thing.