Yellow Journalism

Say redneck whatcha gots goin on?

Well Squatquivoius, how the hell did you get in here?  I been thinking about certain news media and their alignment with the Democrats and their disdain for the military.  I have always thought that the current state of the media started with the introduction of TV News.  However, it goes further back.  TV News just raised the level since TV has become an addiction for the masses. 

An example:

In 1965 the Chairman of the House Armed services Committee was Mr. L. Mendel Rivers.  Keep in mind he was a Democrat. He was a staunch supporter of the military.  In 1965 he pushed through the first pay raise for the military since 1952.  This was over the opposition of LBJ and Sec of defense McNamara.  Prior to that in 1963 he got the military pay tied to the CPI the same as federal employees.  Also, keep in mind that 8 of the 12 years from 1952 to 1965 there was a Republican in the White House, D. Eisenhower, a military man.  During Mr. Rivers time in the Congress there was a concentrated effort by certain people in the “Press” to do him in.  Drew Pearson, one who practiced what has been called “Yellow Journalism”,  spent yards of ink trying to sink him.  His complaint was, ready for this? Mr. Rivers had a “Drinking problem.”  Pearson called him a “Security risk.”  Truth is he was an ardent supporter of the military. Others at the time such as Jack Anderson practiced just such journalism(?).

Looking even further back, prior to 1900 the war between Hearst and Pulitzer for readership did the same. Today the electronic news media practices the same in a battle for viewership.  Sensationalism is the word of the day.  Whether it’s the alphabet soup of broadcast TV or cable news channels it’s all the same.  A larger number of viewers sell more advertising.  To hell with the truth.  The public has become a generation of voyeurs.  A gruesome murder, Marines pissing on terrorists or a broad with her tits hanging out draws more viewers that hard news.  It ain’t going to get better as long as the public supports this type of crap.  Now, the same type of news(?) is on Owl Gore’s electronic superhighway.  One redeeming factor is there is as many or more web sites that counter the “Yellow Blogs(?)”  For every Daily Kos there is ten that treat the daily happenings with adequate, honest  coverage.  Maybe there is hope yet.  As more and more of the public become computer literate they will start to get their news from the web.  As viewership goes down possibly the LSM will sit up and take notice.  One can only hope.  So much for my rambling.