I would say they're equally plausible. It's kind of gross that folks are so ready to deny that there's an over focus on metropolitan issues (I say that as someone that lives in a metro and has lived in a pretty rural area before). The immediate dismissal from folks does lend more credence to the idea that it's a societal bias.
I mean, I'm not denying that there's a metropolitan bias in the media, just that it doesn't explain why 2 stories that both happened in relatively rural locations got reported on differently.
