Flogging a dead horse of a story certainly brings in the clicks, which in the past has resulted in more advertising revenue.

I'm interested to see if this continues, or if it declines since there is a reduced financial incentive.

I could imagine that in a world of paywalls, this is disincentivised, since your users don't want to have the same crap thrown at them over and over (as opposed to now, where publishers make as much controversy/noise as possible in the hope of attracting new clicks).

Could it be that this change in model requires more thoughtful journalism?