Crime may not pay like it used to, but the way it is described in the media has not changed much throughout the millennia.
The Roman satirist Juvenal reminds us that "it is to their crimes that men owe their pleasure-grounds and palaces. . . . All Rome today is in the circus."
For Romans, the circus was no metaphor; it was their YouTube in the round. Privileged citizens watched the slaughter with amusement and impunity; yet the circus may be a fitting description of how our society today looks upon and treats the dissemination of information on crime.