What do you propose we do in the latter situation? The news isn't the value of the life that was (presumably lost). The news is the circumstances that made that loss possible. Human driver was maybe careless, or maybe didn't look. The child safety classes I took emphasized over and over again to look around your car and yard before backing your car out. This is a problem with a known solution that unfortunately still happens despite the best efforts to prevent it.

Waymo hitting a cat is obviously less tragic, but if it can hit a cat, what else can it hit? A toddler? A human? The wall of your kitchen? This is a problem that has no known solution; furthermore, it's a problem that the engineers at Waymo don't seem overly keen on solving quickly.