And the Point of this Story Is?

Tom Bowman interviews the family of Marine Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III who is one of the Marines charged with murder in the killing of an Iraqi in Hamdaniya, Iraq. If you ever catch the Daily Show you know the schtick where they show clips of reporters covering "breaking news" with comments like, "I can't tell you anything right now," or "We don't know what's happened yet." This NPR piece has the same feel. Obviously, the family of a soldier is going to be shocked if that soldier ends up getting charged for murder while in a war zone. Obviously, friends and family of an accused are not going to say, "Well, you know how it is when you are occupying a country that you're government has illegally invaded--it gets messy and sometimes you just have to kill someone because you've been in so many violent and dangerous situations." That would be news! As in this similar piece on CNN a few days ago, family and friends usually emphasize what a good person the accused as always been and assert that person's innocence. So why does NPR waste its air time doing this story where these predictable outcomes are all we get?