The great Cambodian noodle crisis

Upon reading about the recent Cambodian noodle crisis, Phnomenon asks a few apposite questions and then wonders:

Although the chewing tobacco factor lends the article an edge, it does leave me wondering why this Cambodian case was widely reprinted from Associated Press when other mass food poisonings in the region (e.g. 100 tourists in Vietnam last week, 2300 schoolkids in South Korea the week before) received so much less interest in the West.

To which comes the answer: Because those stories forgot to talk about Granny Clampett losing a wad of chaw into the breakfast noodles.