Truth, Beauty, and the Evening News

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Louis M. Glackens' cartoon in Punch: 'The Yellow Press'. William Randolph Hearst as a jester tossing newspapers with headlines such as 'Appeals to Passion, Venom, Sensationalism, Attacks on Honest Officials, Strife, Distorted News, Personal Grievance, Misrepresentation' to a crowd of eager readers, among them an anarchist assassinating a politician speaking from a platform draped with American flags; on the left, men labeled 'Man who buys the comic supplement for the kids, Businessman, Gullible Reformer, Advertiser, and Decent Citizen' carry bags of money that they dump into Hearst's printing press'. (October 12, 1910)

"It's fair to say that if news sites were people, most would be diagnosed as clinically depressed right now."
("I stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or the product?", Amanda Ripley, Washington Post (July 8, 2022) via Wikiquote)

A comic strip started me thinking about the news, fearmongering, viewpoints, and weird groupings from Google News. I'll be talking about that: along with rich folks, free speech, and whatever else comes to mind.

More at A Catholic Citizen in America.

(Free speech, the yellow press, lese-majesty, weird groupings from Google News, moral panic: making sense, and a bit of good advice.)

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