No more different now than it has been in the past.
In the past news items of a local area generally stayed local.
In the past local news traveled to other areas if there was time or newspaper space for that news.
Now with the speed of internet news it goes national more quickly linking to local news outlets.

#1 is actually a good assessment of it. With the advent of technologies, we're simply able to know more about what's going on everywhere at any given time. Some areas are targeted more due to subsequent history, also.