In response to the news, Spiked produced data from the Government's Health Survey for England which suggested that obesity levels are actually leveling off.
We're not, so no real rev gain in news spikes".
On Friday, a day on which the market tumbled, ratings for business news channels spiked.
But since so much of the cable-news ratings spike has been driven by the presidential race, viewership may sag once a winner is declared.
First came reports — denied by Bloomberg — that the news division spiked a story on the Chinese elite — a follow-up to an earlier, award-winning investigation that had angered the Communist Party leaders — because the new story would further provoke the government.
Wednesday's news caused a spike in the price of oil, with Brent crude reaching nearly $114 a barrel, up nearly $2 from Tuesday.
Following in Facebook's footsteps, YouTube is also cracking down on "fake news," following a spike in malicious content designed to sway political opinion on a massive scale.
Ratings for all the cable news channels also spiked over the weekend, though to a lesser extent.
It has helped them understand how news can cause spikes in searches, as it did when she broke up with Justin Timberlake.
But the kidnappers also appear to understand that any news organization that spikes such footage leaves itself open to criticism that it is violating a basic tenet of journalism, namely that it should report what it knows and show what it has seen.
"Each time we break news, we get a spike of traffic," Mr. Patel said.
