Blanket media coverage helps stoke expectations - and fans can turn nasty when the team falls short.

BBC: The year of the little club

To flatter him, flag-waving schoolchildren lined the streets, Egyptian bedouins with links to Mr Qaddafi's own tribe cheered him on, and the state-controlled media offered blanket coverage of his forays to the Egyptian Museum and the tomb of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president whom Mr Qaddafi still idolises as a hero of Arab nationalism.

ECONOMIST: Libya and the bombed airliners | The

The US media has provided blanket coverage of the story, which effectively places the entire US military on trial for rape.

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