The pictures from Athens have been dramatic, the news of deaths grim - and there is every sign that there will be more unrest as the Greek government wrestles with a generation-long legacy of spending more than it collects in taxes.
We journalists put these stories in our bulletins and on our websites only when the pictures or stories are dramatic and/or grim. Though they explain little. We tell our audiences 'what', 'where' and 'when' ... but all-too-seldom the 'why'.
Especially when that 'why' is complex - so complex that many of us putting bulletins and programmes and web pages together don't understand them ourselves.
That's why Adam Shaw's report on BBC Radio 4's Today which questioned the faith we - and investors - put in credit rating agencies like Standard and Poor's or Moodys was so welcome.
One trigger of the Greek crisis, both in the media and the markets (and, yes, it was probably only a matter of time), was the moment these agencies downgraded Greece, effectively saying the likelihood of the country defaulting on its debts had increased.
The media reported the downgrading as the crisis it hadn't yet become; the markets reacted to ensure it became one; the bail out began ... and so to the tear gas and petrol bombs.
But let's just pause a moment and think about that trigger.
How much notice should we journalists take of these, normally arcane, credit ratings? How good are they really at telling us about the financial health of an overstretched country's exchequer or, indeed, a bank? Should we be reporting their judgments as in some way 'real' or even accurate?
After all, the agencies were less than brilliant at spotting the weaknesses in US banks during the sub-prime collapse - indeed, some 80% of previously AAA-rated securities are now 'junk'. A technical term for ... err ... junk.
The same lack of prescience seems to have afflicted the ratings agencies when it came to General Motors.
But it's not just a questionable track record that should make us journalists take care when we're deciding whether or not to report what these agencies say. People who watch these things and are far cleverer than me point out that the agencies are slow to downgrade those whose operations are still profitable - though their underlying health might be a tad dicky - and that changes in a rating are less a prediction, more an epitaph.
And we should also bear in mind that the work of the credit rating agencies is actually paid for by the people who issue the credit in the first place. Would you quote without qualification the star ratings in a hotel or restaurant guide whose bills were paid by those it rated?
Thought not.
Back in April, the BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston blogged about the influence the agencies have, concluding that:
"... it doesn't feel democratic or sustainable that the fiscal fate of nations and currency zones - and indeed the perceived strength of the financial system - rests on the analytical verdict of three private-sector research firms, the financial record of which has in recent years not been unblemished".
Wise words. And maybe we should all bear them in mind the next time we're tempted to pull this particular story trigger.
