Agreed, local reporting culture (and how it's received elsewhere) probably has a big impact. Besides serious/entertaining news, there's also the fact some places/news cultures relish reporting on exotic stuff, while others feel belittled/offended and actively fight reporting with, say, a "Florida Man" or "UFO true believers in town" flavor.

The other side of the coin is exaggerating the exoticness of people's behavior, animal facts, etc., reported from obscure far away places, but for which very similar examples exist locally (and most likely wouldn't result in successful news articles).