I dunno. Is utterly vapid non-news worse than some of the sensationalist muckraking that used to take place a century ago? Or that arguably still takes place today in many areas?
Arguably this stuff has no reason to exist, but at least it isn't setting out to maliciously shape people's opinions on real life events. Yellow Journalism used just as much bunch pseudo-science and eye-catching falsifications to lure in readers, but it applied them not just to nonsese like celebrity dating (real or imagined), but also to actually pressing matters like wars, elections, the state of civil rights, and more.
Personally I'd rather people read articles like this than listen to, say, Bill O'Rielly, if only because this seems the lesser of the two evils.
I dunno. Is utterly vapid non-news worse than some of the sensationalist muckraking that used to take place a century ago? Or that arguably still takes place today in many areas?
ReplyDeleteArguably this stuff has no reason to exist, but at least it isn't setting out to maliciously shape people's opinions on real life events. Yellow Journalism used just as much bunch pseudo-science and eye-catching falsifications to lure in readers, but it applied them not just to nonsese like celebrity dating (real or imagined), but also to actually pressing matters like wars, elections, the state of civil rights, and more.
Personally I'd rather people read articles like this than listen to, say, Bill O'Rielly, if only because this seems the lesser of the two evils.