The Competitive Principle Reapplied

In the heyday of the redtop (tabloid) press
in my country, the most cynical readers,
and other wiseacres describe the mess 
presented to them as 'the news' as
'Build them up to knock them down',
as applied to some new popular entertainer.

The 'knock them down' part was to make room
in the press for the next entertainer to come along
when there was always another one to come.

Now we have an international digital media
where shrinking returns is not a double entendre
but a major fear for the wealthy shareholders,
where different news networks reapply
the old 'Build up, knock down' principle
less to some hapless new entertainer
and more between different networks,
each of which measures itself by how much
the headlines it makes up sets the news agenda.