Well, also, people like pandas because they're cute and cuddly and as such they like to read stories about baby pandas.

Not everything is part of some giant capitalist conspiracy. Sometimes people just like pandas.

It's not a capitalist conspiracy, it's just the path of least resistance, if you are in the morning meeting deciding what stories to cover, it's a slow newsday and you have a press release from the zoo announcing the birth of the panda it's easier to just report on that than to go looking for a story.

You're right, but that's not the scenario the comment I responded to was implying.

There's a difference between "oh look, there's a baby panda, this is an easy one" and participating in a months-long coordinated campaign designed to make money.