Present Tense in News Reports

There's a clue in the name, and it's only a one-word name: 'News' is a collection of reported events that, although new (hence "old news" makes as much sense as "new olds"), have already occurred. Even news reported in breaking events has already occurred; the rest is speculation and thus not (yet) news.

So why do the news media insist on using present tense in their reports? Here's an example from your favourite news source and mine, BBC News (although you can readily find your own examples from other sources). "Biker Jorge Martinez Boero dies on Dakar Rally first day", it claims. Oh, really? How often does he die? Or is it a fictitious plot, and BBC News is reading from a manuscript? (BBC News is not known for the high quality of its reporting: In the same article, at the time of writing, the opening sentence says, "Argentine motorcyclist Jorge Martinez Boero had (sic) died in an accident". Presumably, they think he's now recovering from the ordeal.)

Perhaps it's done to exaggerate the currentness of the events and the report: "We're so reactive to events that we're reporting it as it unfolds." Except that they're not: Rather than being there before the event occurs, to "catch" it as it happens (because they can't be everywhere), they're largely told the details by Reuters and other agencies.

In a sick world, run by groups of people who no doubt manipulate and fabricate a lot of the news stories for their own gain (and I don't necessarily mean governments, or even journalists), "fictitious plot", which I jokingly mentioned in paragraph two, is hardly out of the realms of possibility. To make things worse, they also suspiciously call news articles "stories". Is this a deliberate sick joke on the rest of us, or is it blatant, blasé honesty?