Journalism, Purple:

Journalism as currently perpetrated by many news outlets that claim to be professional, unbiased, and factual. In reality, they are partisan, prone to sensationalism, and motivated primarily by the bottom line. (No. 1)


If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't, yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 Glossary  

                                  Just Who IS This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Dana -- A Gentlereader
Iggy -- A Sticky (GT*)

Marie-Louise -- My Muse (GT*)

*Currently Grand Touring 

"Ideology, politics, and journalism, which luxuriate in failure, are impotent in the face of hope and joy." -P.J. O'Rourke


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

It's my protologism, sung to the tune of It's My Party (and I'll cry if I want to).

It's my protologism, I'll define it the way I want to
Define it the way I want to, define it the way I want to
I love inventing words or phrases, don't you?

[Apropo of nothing much, Wikipedia has a very interesting entry about It's My Party. I'll betcha a bottle-a-pop you didn't know it was Quincy Jones first hit single.]

I wrote a three-column series about journalism last summer wherein I proposed that our new millennium has seen a revival/update of yellow journalism and I named the phenomenon Purple Journalism.

At the time I created this clever concatenation of words (cough, cough) it was my intention to occasionally write a column illustrating my concept with an example of exactly what I mean.

You can stop holding your breath now because a headline posted on a recent Drudge Report reminded me of this and inspired this column. If you're not familiar with the Drudge Report it's an extremely popular website consisting mostly of news stories gathered from outlets from all over the planet Earth 

Matt Drudge is a genius who posts links to outright Purple Journalism, purple tinted more or less straight news, and straight news stories whose subject matter is either gruesome or prone to induce anxiety -- purple tinted content.

The result is world-class clickbait without the downsides of ordinary clickbait (endless linking, endless advertising, and links that have little or nothing to do with the headline that lured ya in the first place). 

[Tell me, oh windy one, are you ever going to tell them about the actual story? The one that allegedly is a good example of whatever the hell it is you're on about?]   

Background is important, Dana, and yes, I am.


The following headline is from an article in The Guardian, a UK newspaper that's not one of the United Kingdom's (in)famous tabloids.

Heavily processed foods like ready meals and ice cream linked to early death

Below it is the following subheadline.

Two major studies add to the body of evidence against food made with industrial ingredients

Scary shtuff, huh? No need to purple it up, really, so Mr. Drudge opted for simplification to achieve maximum impact.

Heavily processed food linked to early death...

[This is the sort of news that cries out for public attention! For the love of God, people are dropping dead! I wonder if Congress is looking into this? Why isn't this all over the news? I'm gonna throw all my beloved bacon away, right now!]

Dana, I would call your attention to the fourth paragraph of this declaration of existential apocalypse, which reads as follows.

"The study, published in the British Medical Journal, does not prove that ultra-processed foods cause disease. Nor does the effect appear particularly large, even in the most enthusiastic junk food consumers. The results suggest that 277 cases of cardiovascular disease would arise each year in 100,000 heavy consumers of ultra-processed foods, versus 242 cases in the same number of low consumers (my italicizations and emboldenizatons).

[Wait... what?]


If I may, some interesting things I noticed as a result of a careful reading of this 12-paragraph article, with "...an accompanying editorial...", for ya sunshine.

"... industrial ingredients may have had a hand..."

In another study of 20,000 college graduates in Spain, 335 subjects dropped dead over the course of 15 years of various and sundry causes.

"The top quarter consumers of ultra-processed foods – who had more than four servings a day – were 62% more likely to have died than those in the bottom quarter, who ate less than two portions a day. For each additional serving, the risk of death rose 18%." 

Sounds scary, huh? Read it again. We're not told how many of the unfortunate 365 had more than four servings of "ultra-processed foods" daily. Which means that we have no way of knowing how many "were more likely to have died" from eating them. 62% of ? = ? 

And wouldn't you like to know how they figured out how many of these meals of death were consumed daily by 20,000 people over the course of 15 years? Or how they figured out the same thing from the other study, of 105,000 people over the course of five years. 


Hey kids! You too can easily spot Purple Journalism and cut back on your Xanax consumption. Always remember, the scarier the headline the greater the need for a careful reading of the text. 

Helpful hint: when obvious questions occur to you that a professional journalist failed to ask you may have stumbled into [insert dramatic music here] The Purple Zone. Poppa loves you. 

Have an OK day. 

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P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains. Just click here or on the Patreon button at the top or bottom of my website.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer As long as you agree to supply my name and URL (Creative Commons license at the top and bottom of my website) you may republish this anywhere that you please. Light editing that doesn't alter the content is acceptable. You don't have to include any of the folderol before the greeting or after the closing except for the title. 


   

1984

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't, yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 Glossary  

                                  Just Who IS This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Dana -- A Gentlereader
Iggy -- A Sticky (GT*)

Marie-Louise -- My Muse (GT*)

*Currently Grand Touring

"I majored in English in college, so I read the classic dystopian novels like 1984 and Brave New World." -Lois Lowry


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

The fact that George Orwell's "classic dystopian novel" was published on 6/8/49, and thus is now 70 years old, has been recently duly noted here, there, and even way over there. That is to say, I've stumbled across several mentions of this anniversary in my personal infosphere.

[FYI, I encased dystopian masterpiece in quotes because that phrase, or something very much like it, has also repeatedly appeared here, there, and even way over there. Although it's true, I'm way too cool to personally use it.]

I'm bringing this up because for a while now I've been thinking about writing a letter/column comparing the book to what's currently going on in China at the behest of the current emperor, Xi Dada. That is to say, things like the Social Credit System, locking up Muslims for being Muslims, and the SMILE! Xi Dada is Watching show.

[FYI, Xi Dada is Chinese for Uncle Xi (Jinping). His wife is referred to as Peng Mama, which is Chinese for Mother Peng. So apparently, mama is mama but dada is uncle. Since I don't speak any dialect of Chinese, not even Mandarin, I dunno. I do know that Mother Peng is also the very model of a modern Major General (of the People's Liberation Army). I also know that Xi Dada LOVES Peng Mama.]

And then, out of the blue, the work of other H. sapiens, noting that it's been 70 years since this book was published, seemed to be stalking me. Is this a sign from God? A cosmic coinkydink? A subtle nudge by the author, whose ghost haunts some seldom visited house located in the hot and humid forest of the 100,000,000,000 (give or take) neurons betwixt my ears?

[FYI, since I hadn't recently gone a-googling in search of data about the book or its author, electronic stalking by an Alogorythmite or Botmonster or Datadragon can be safely ruled out.]


Anyways, what I should have done was simply proceed with my letter/column, reassured that apparently lots of other H. sapiens are so interested in 1984 that they keep track of its anniversaries and are motivated by them to write articles.

[FYI, I personally had no idea that it's been 70 years since the book was published. Also, I haven't been able to discover any particular reason why the number 70 might be more important than the numbers 69 or 71. Sesame Street did not respond to a request for comment.]

All I wanted to do was point out that Xi Dada's megalomaniacal machinations and the technology that makes them possible make Big Brother's machinations seem antiquated and quaint.

[FYI, The Goog, whose corporate motto was the unambiguous declaration -- Don't be Evil -- which has been watered down to -- Do the Right Thing -- was recently caught secretly developing a version of its Chrome web browser, Dragonfly, that complied with the emperor's policy of censor everything, spy on everyone. 

Not to worry though, they're now doing the right thing. (Or not, an entry in Wikipedia on the subject states that "...according to employees, work on Dragonfly continues in 2019 and there are some 100 people still allocated to it.]

Also, point out that rarely does a day pass in which I don't come across a report concerning a major invasion of privacy by the Goog or Facebook or Amazon or Netflix (or a lesser-known Data Dragon). Usually accidentally, of course. (Trust us, we're progressives! we love everyone, even unwoken Deplorables.)

It would seem that we don't have to just worry about Big Brother, we also have to worry about Big Brother's brothers.


However...

I made the mistake of reading a handful of those articles, the ones I mentioned that kept popping up in my infosphere? They were all mind-numbingly, highly detailed dreary literary analyses.

Suddenly, I found myself traveling back in time. I got caught in a vortex constituted of English classes in which perfectly good books were rendered hopelessly tedious and had all the life, fun, and enjoyment sucked out of them by seemingly endless analysis and analysis of analyses.

I remembered fantasizing about tipping over my desk and run screaming from the room, later to be consoled by that completely out of my league girl with _______ as I was now her hero and _______.

[FYI, upon careful consideration, I've decided that most of the various daydreams I could use to fill in the blanks of the preceding paragraph, even the wholesome, innocent, romantic ones, might get me beheaded by a social justice warrior roaming the realm in search of injustices in need of correction, so I choose the path of a coward.]

So now I don't want to write about 1984 after all, never mind. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 
Please scroll down to react, comment, or share.


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P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains. Just click here or on the Patreon button at the top or bottom of my website.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer As long as you agree to supply my name and URL (Creative Commons license at the top and bottom of my website) you may republish this anywhere that you please. Light editing that doesn't alter the content is acceptable. You don't have to include any of the folderol before the greeting or after the closing except for the title. 

Apology

If you're new here, this is a weekly column consisting of letters written to my (eventual) grandchildren (who exist) and my great-grandchildren (who don't, yet) -- the Stickies -- to haunt them after they become grups and/or I'm dead.

[Blogaramians: Blogarama renders the links in my columns useless. Please click on View Original to solve this problem and access lotsa columns.]

                                                 Glossary  

                                  Just Who IS This Guy?

Irregularly Appearing Imaginary Guest Stars 

Dana -- A Gentlereader
Iggy -- A Sticky (GT*)

Marie-Louise -- My Muse (GT*)

*Currently Grand Touring 

"To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense." -Ambrose Bierce


Dear (eventual) Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

I apologize on behalf of my entire generation, the Baby Boomers, to our future fellow Americans. Although not officially authorized to speak on behalf of my entire generation, I'm going to do it anyway.

After all, in an era in which even so-called traditional, mainstream news outlets (an increasingly murky concept I admit) feel free to publish/broadcast unverifiable content -- based on an occasionally reliable source identified as not authorized to speak because _______, and that likely as not proves to be incorrect -- why not?


I'm sorry, we spent all the money. Not only that, we're now living off of your credit card.

I'm not talking about the money or assets that some of us may intend to leave behind for some of you. But fair warning, you can't count on that.

Medical science is keeping people alive, on average, far longer than ever before. A given Boomer may use up all their money to slake their Starbucks addiction and/or to keep eating organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, sugar-free, etcetery, this, that, and that other thing by the time they're recycled.

Or,

The ever-spiraling cost of health care might claim it all and then some.

And,

Medicare and Social Security, which many of us desperately need and aren't about to give up, are Ponzi schemes in trouble. This is partially the fault of the Millenials and whatever they're calling the ones after that this week. They aren't making enough babies to keep the hustle going.

And,

In my experience, people my age (and even older) are prone to maintaining just enough life insurance to cover our "final expenses" and maybe a little more to cover the cost of a wake.

See,

Even term insurance gets breathtakingly expensive if you hang around long enough.

And,

There's no shortage of firms willing to buy a given geezer's whole life policy who are running no shortage of commercials to get the word out.

Cash-out now and see Tahiti before you wake up dead! Or imagine being able to afford all your medical needs! No more taking your scripts every other day! 

But like I said, that's not what I want to talk about; that's not what I want to apologize for.


The crushing and ever-expanding national debt and a plethora of unfulfillable financial promises, that's what I want to apologize for.

Granted, it's hardly all our fault. Let's look at unfulfillable financial promise number one, Social Security. Social Security is an 83-year-old program that's been around since before the first Boomer (1946) was born. Social Security is a welfare program. Always has been. I'm not complaining or about to give up my distressingly humble little piece of the pie. Without it, I'd be living in a tent.

[All right, let me be honest, without it and its first cousin, Medicare, I might not be living at all.]

However, when it was set up, living long enough to collect it was much more chancy than it is now. The Gummit set up a Bernie Madoff sort of system. Why invest the money in something real and when there would always be plenty of new taxpayers to fund the needs of the retired?

Till there ain't.

In the meantime, The Gummit was provided with a steady stream of money that they used/use for all sorts of things besides mailing out checks. But it wrote itself IOUs and promised to pay itself back, with interest! to itself -- to be paid by, itself (you).

And now...

The Gummit says there's a problem. The Social Security trust fund, which consists of IOUs, is running out of money. In reality, what this means is that there are not enough new marks taxpayers in the pipeline to pay for the old marks taxpayers.


My clearly stated mission is to provide enlightened infotainment via the wit and wisdom of a garrulous geezer. The use of the word wit, to me at least (some of you may find this puzzling), is indicative of a commitment on my part to make you smile.

Therefore, I hesitate to link to the best article I've ever read about not only what's up with Social Security but also the plethora of unfulfillable promises mentioned above. It's not particularly amusing.

My generation has been in charge for a while now, and my generation has known about this problem for a while now, and so far, hasn't done a damn thing.

Hopefully, it will all work out somehow. If it doesn't, I hope I don't live long enough to say I told you so (and ask if there's room for me under that overpass you call home).

When I'm king, I'll phase in a system like the one Singapore uses. They came up with an affordable, well run, social security system wherein their citizens, not bureauons, decide how their money is spent that provides real social security, for everyone, cradle to grave.

Their healthcare system makes ours look sick. Poppa loves you.

Have an OK day. 
Please scroll down to react, comment, or share.


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
P.S. Gentlereaders, for 25¢ a week, no, seriously, for 25¢ a week you can become a patron of this weekly column and help to prevent an old crank from running the streets at night in search of cheap thrills and ill-gotten gains. Just click here or on the Patreon button at the top or bottom of my website.

Your friendly neighborhood crank is not crazy about social media (I am a crank after all) but if you must, you can like me/follow me on Facebook. I post an announcement when I have a new column available as well as news articles/opinion pieces that reflect where I'm coming from or that I wish to call attention to.

©2019 Mark Mehlmauer As long as you agree to supply my name and URL (Creative Commons license at the top and bottom of my website) you may republish this anywhere that you please. Light editing that doesn't alter the content is acceptable. You don't have to include any of the folderol before the greeting or after the closing except for the title.