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Yellow Journalism || Commentary [1]

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Date: 2023-02-24  

Ruh-Roh!

Not too many years ago, the mainstream press came to the aid of Fox News. In 2010, former president Barack Obama said to Rolling Stone of Fox News, “It’s a point of view,” Obama said, “that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world.” That was not Obama’s first or last attempt to warn us about Fox News’ yellow journalism. In a post-presidency speech, he said, “It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News – but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people.”

ABC, CBS, NBC, and the conservative and liberal press came to the defense of FOX, claiming the dangers of repression of the media by a president are dangerous. Obviously, it was disturbing to find out that Fox News reporter James Rosen was caught up in an investigation about leaks of classified information about the North Korean nuclear tests as a result of Obama-era sanctions. Unfortunately, the media bent so far backward that it allowed FOX and other conservative outlets to go unchecked and become American propaganda. The absurdity has reached such a point that Fox News’s Tucker Carlson gleefully broadcast a series of shows from inside a despotic regime in Hungary.

I am a firm, passionate proponent of the 1st Amendment, so it is painful to suggest restrictions on the press, but that does not exclude questions. Yellow journalism has always existed in this country. The danger now is that yellow journalism is becoming influential. How many have whiled away the minutes in the grocery store line reading the news rack rags, discovering where the aliens landed and where Elvis is enjoying dinner with Tupac? All while ruminating if we need two bags of Ho-Ho’s.

So influential—has become yellow journalism that it helped to feed the delusions of rioters and traitors’ and incite an insurrection. The Speaker of the House [Kevin McCarthy] just turned over 40 thousand hours of surveillance footage revealing secreted congressional hiding areas, security measures, and cameras and their angles to the equivalent of the host of America’s Funniest Videos, Tucker Carlson. The Fox News host will probably edit the tapes to paint a picture of peaceful tourists manipulated into a riotous mob by the deep state. The same Carlson who, when sued, successfully posited the defense, no one can or should believe me. “Whether the Court frames Mr. Carlson’s statements as ‘exaggeration,’ ‘non-literal commentary,’ or simply bloviating for his audience, the conclusion remains the same — the statements are not actionable,” read U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil’s opinion.

Carlson embodies what was late-night programming when we peered through the cigarette clouds laughing at Morton Downey Jr. or Tom Snyder’s confounding intellect. Carlson is about one guest away from throwing a chair or announcing—Britt! You are the father! Democracies are destroyed by first perverting the dissemination of information. We must be careful; yellow journalism is laughable but not funny.

Continue to Vote for Change

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