"The news itself has become so ubiquitous, so constant that our eyes only pop out when a really shiny object comes flowing down the river,” said Jim Bankoff, the head of Vox Media, which operates the sports Web site SB Nation and the technology site The Verge. “People don’t just consume it, they ‘like’ it, retweet and e-mail it. All this sharing leads to more sharing, which sets off a trend, which sparks more coverage."