The NYT does not have this barely at all. There should be a giant picture of the mushroom cloud on their front page to reflect the severity (potential or real) of the situation. It's shameful.
I would not fault you for disagreeing with that style. Most importantly I think that it risks missing important events: at first they are either not verified (or not verified to be important, like here) and a few days later they are no longer newsworthy. But at least it seems that there is some logic to it.
The Chinese spy-on-the-weather balloon debacle is the textbook definition of sensational yellow journalism. NYT has had constant front-page coverage of it.
It was front page on Bloomberg. I admit I didn’t click on it. To the degree this is of urgent national concern, it’s in a rail safety bill we have months to debate.
When this happened. Nobody clicked on it so it fell off. (I’m still failing to see why this is a national tragedy requiring minute to minute updates.)
This usually happens outside the news room, investigative journalism being the exception. The lack of environmental NGOs raising a fuss may be part of the problem, if you think spin is the issue. (I do not. I think most Americans simply aren’t concerned with this, and those who are, and have influence, are mostly looking at rulemaking and liability ramifications.)