Why is the Charge of the Light Brigade still rememebered today?

Even after its 160th anniversary, it is still puzzling why anyone would still be interested in what was a relatively minor military blunder in a relatively minor war in a relatively minor region.  Its place in the public’s imagination and its enduring symbolism of heroic failure, self sacrifice and devotion to duty, as well as its relevance today is much due to the enduring lines of Tennyson’s ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’:

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
'Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Nothing illustrates the British people’s almost equal veneration of defeats and victories, than the mass of artwork and literacy celebrating the ill-fated charge.  This disproportionate remembrance was not solely due to the words of Tennyson and the masterpieces of Barker and Butler, but the legacy of its initial impact.  Although the Crimean War has long been overshadowed by the slaughter of the First and Second World Wars, it is significant because it was the first media war.  There were reporters and photographers on the fronts capturing events in a truly revolutionary way.  This brought the home-front closer to the battlefield than it had ever been.  The doomed charge against overwhelming Russian artillery struck an emotional chord with the jingoistic public psyche. 

The remembrance of the charge is paradoxical.  Such an ill fated blunder should surely be wiped from history by the same people who continue to honour it and accredit the victims with heroic status.  It should surely be used solely as an example to criticise the aloofness of Britain’s high command during the First World War, in which the same view of distant, incompetent aristocrats ignoring the better judgement of professional soldiers was reinforced by the butchery of the Somme.  This is an exemplar of the great effect that the arts can have on a nation’s consciousness.