Well, people doing horrible things is an everyday occurence. A beating is by itself a wholly unremarkable event. What makes an assault story news-worthy isn't the assault itself, but all the little things around it : the victim's identity, the bystander's reactions, and random people/organisations making great declarations about how those kind of things should never happen again.
This kind of stories stopped shocking me a long time ago, but I still feel as horrified and furious as always.