Speaking in Yellow: The Crisis in Our Politics

[Joanne98]

Lately, American politics is neither blue nor red, but yellow.


Like the "yellow journalism" that plagued the turn of the last century, this new era of Gilded Age politics has been overrun by obscene exaggerations and outright falsehoods, all whipped into national hysteria by newsrooms that long-ago swapped research method for PR wave moxie.


Most of this yellow journalism, of course, flows from a few for-profit news outlets seeking to make money by keeping their readers in a constant frenzy. William Randolph Hearst, allow me to introduce you to Rupert Murdoch.

As you might have noticed, however, media induced frenzy in the age of newsboys in shorts is like a codeine stupor compared to the cocaine jolt of cable news with a Facebook-Twitter chaser. It seems quaint these days to even call the news cycle "24/7." The last plague of yellow journalism grew from big headlines and front page stories. Today's yellow journalism thrives in second-by-second updated web and social media where sensationalism reproduces faster than bacteria in a middle school gym locker. Today, yellow stories overwhelm the actual issues before any real ink hits actual paper.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/speaking-in-yellow-the-cr_b_704940.html