Sorry, my response needed to better clarify with a complicated mess like this. The idea I was trying to get at with “both email stories” was the attempts to blur everything together - trying to use the DNC email acknowledgment to lend credibility to all of the other stories. There were a lot of self-proclaimed infosec experts posting about how disqualifying it was.

I completely agree that Comey bringing it back into the front page played a bigger role but I wouldn’t rule out all of the social media trolling having more than a little influence. It seemed to leave a lot of reporters covering non-stories lest they be accused of bias again.