The Death of Modern Yellow Journalism?

Bullshit journalism isn't new. When The United States was founded, a lot of newspapers were owned by politicians who praised themselves and derided their opponents. "Citizen Kane" is my favorite film partly because it is based on one of the two progenitors of "yellow journalism" in the 1800's: William Randolph Hearst. His hollow empire of lies began in the mid-1800's, and so it goes that just as buildup to the Iraq war in 2003 was garnished with outright fabrications from willing media sources, the Spanish-American War was based on bullshit that the Spanish had planted a torpedo on an American ship that they subsequently blew up remotely. In fact, the ship was almost certainly sunk in a random accident. As Hearst wired to one of his journalists at the time, "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war."

The media's bullshit is so widespread during this century that even if you read that Hearst quotation now, and I attributed it to George W. Bush or one of his minions, who subsequently fed photoshopped images of Iraqi WMD plants to USA Today, it probably wouldn't even surprise you. But it wasn't always the case. I really hate to date myself, but I remember a time when even CNN was considered a credible news outlet-- to the extent that even my political science professors quoted some of its reporters from time to time. Nowadays I would be willing to bet that despite most university professors' Democratic leanings, when they quote CNN reporters they do it in a jocular way. They're a punchline-- a callback to the days when the yellow media of Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer sacrificed the truth for a down payment on another mansion. It's pathetic.


Matt Taibbi has a great history of chucking bullshit reportage into his verbal woodchipper. Read his new excoriation in which he likens Mueller's dud and the bullshit that surrounded it to the WMD hysteria of 2003 here.



When you read it, please bear in mind that Taibbi is left-leaning. Yet, unlike David Corn (who he takes to task in that piece) he obviously doesn't allow his views to become The Truth.

Taibbi also has a simple message for reporters who believe that IT'S NOT THE END OF ALL THINGS-- WE MUST GET TRUMP OUT OF OFFICE: