I don't know just how journalists who cover the internet choose what to write about, but as someone who follows this topic relatively closely, I've come to the conclusion that most web-covering journalists have a limited list of topics they think deserve attention (sex and love, children and censorship, surfing on company time, and the like) and they return to them with an almost predictable regularity, regardless of whether or not there's a particular reason to do so. Thus it may well be that the topic of surfing on company time hasn't really become a hot topic again, but instead, it's turn has simply come up.

Along similar lines, after a rather long period of quiet, I suddenly started finding a number of make money quick schemes showing up on my a couple of the lists I'm subscribed to. I doubt that this means that schemes of this sort or enjoying new popularity, but rather their time has come around again on the lists I frqeuent.