Gloating For Profit

Something I resist,
with varying degrees of success,
is being cajoled by the popular press.
I find their search for the worst
in human life bad enough in itself.
But it is far worse than that.

I don't want to imagine the profits
that the national press aspire make
out of advertisers who support them
on the back of their reporting disasters.

There used to be rural traditions
of paying mourners in some beliefs.
The moneys were small and stayed local.

What happens when the national press
gets to work is worse than being paid to gloat.