Report on the Problem You Create- The Rise of Cyclical Sensationalism
A reporter places a banana peel at the top of the staircase in a local mall. A customer walks toward the stairs only to be shoved by the reporter onto the banana peel and down the stairs. The customer dies from traumatic injuries. The next day the reporter's headline reads, "Customer Dies on Mall Stairs." The same reporter repeats the assassination ritual a few more times and shares the story of a negligent staircase widely on social media. he also cites his own article from the previous week, giving the impression of an epidemic of dangerous stairs. From there it spreads among local mall patrons. The next week the reporter's headline reads, "Customers Concerned about Staircase Safety at Mall." ***** A visible trend is emerging in crank journalism and slimy activism-- reporting on the significance of a problem that they themselves created. For unethical "journalists" it is a way to create "evidence" that their errant or malicious posit