The excessive coverage of the scandal signals that the news media may have finally hit/reached 'the bottom of the barrel'.
Salaries in the industry are scraping/hitting 'the bottom of the barrel'. [=salaries in the industry are very low]
Several people have lost their jobs recently, so the office isn't exactly a 'barrel of laughs' these days.
(..) Well, home is home, you know. I gotta have some of that! Oh, no no no, see this, this was aged for a thousand years, in the barrels built from the wreck of Brunhilde's fleet, it's not meant for mortal men. Neither was Omaha Beach, blondie. Stop trying to scare us. C'mon. All right. Excelsior! (..)2015 Avengers: Age of Ultron