Do we secretly love disasters?

In a different reaction to our collective reaction to the Victorian bushfires, the ever insightful Ross Gittens of the SMH says of the recent bushfires "...media coverage of this one's gone way over the top. And it's served to strengthen my suspicion that the community's reaction to natural disasters is exploitative, voyeuristic, unfair, self-gratifying and even pathological."

Read his article here

Is he right? What do you reckon? Maybe Ross Gittens says out loud what we are all afraid to admit? That we quite like disasters. As long as it doesn't happen to us of course.