The biggest narrative during Barack Obama's world tour was that he was getting too much press attention and that the liberal media was biased toward an Obama coronation. 

But being able to pull nearly 300,000 people for a speech by someone who isn't even president yet, IS news.   However, each breath covering Obama's itinerary (or other mundane detail that didn't need to be covered) was given with the self-effacing context that maybe the media was paying too much attention to all of this. The subtext was always: "maybe we shouldn't be covering this or at least we should question whether we should be covering this...oh, <hand wrining>, what to do?, what to do?"

When Obama did indeed draw nearly 300,000 people in Germany the discussion rarely went to what does this draw mean and what does his overseas popularity suggest.  Instead the conversation was always whether the coverage was over the top.  Given that consistent backdrop, who is really getting their message across.  The McCain campaign has to be credited for an impressive sales campaign in pushing the media into such a neurotic tail spin of insecurity.  That sales effort out shown Obama's ability to draw over a quarter of a million people in a country where he's essentially a random foreign politician with aspirations for higher office.   Further, the press discussion drifted to the potential negatives of such appeal in a foreign land. Again, an excellent sales job by the McCain campaign.  

But in the end, the nature and character of the coverage of Obama's world tour is a reflection of the natural media propensities.  The press will make you to create a story and then it will break you to create a second story.  It can sold to hype things up (a bit more difficult), and then it can be sold again to destroy its creation (a lot easier, see: http://www.skewz.com/link/link_details/dana-milbank-president-obama-continues-hectic-victory-tour-washingtonpost-com).  Eating your young is a lot easier and cheaper than investing in creating something new and insightful.