This is blatant sensationalism

Among my favorite movies on the media is “The Paper,” a film from 1994, back when people still got a lot of their news in print.

It’s not my favorite. My favorite’s still “Network,” from 1976, known for the line “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

The film that foretold reality TV has more relevant lines from “mad prophet of the airwaves” Howard Beale, like this excerpt from his “we are the illusion” speech:

“We deal in ‘illusions,’ man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds... We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. ... This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing! WE are the illusion!”

That never gets old, for some reason.

But “Network” is about TV news. It’s not about print like “The Paper,” which has memorable lines, too.

Early in the film, the tabloid editor Michael Keaton plays is headed to work, the day he has a job interview with the staid broadsheet “The Sentinel.” Talking to his wife as he leaves home, he ridicules its front page:

“Look at that ‘Sentinel’ headline. See, this kind of stuff is just shameless. ‘Nepal Premier Won’t Resign.’ They’re just trying to sell newspapers. That’s sensationalism, and I won’t be a party to it.”

I still use that a lot. Sunday’s front page had an entertainment tease that said, “’FIDDLER ON THE ROOF’ HITS STAGE,” so I took a picture of it and posted it on Facebook, writing:

“See, this kind of stuff is just shameless: ‘Fiddler on the Roof Hits Stage.’ They’re just trying to sell newspapers. That’s sensationalism, and I won’t be a party to it.”

Apparently we’ll be hearing a lot about sensationalism as President Donald Trump takes office, because of that top-secret dossier we can’t talk about.

We can’t talk about it because it’s unverified. And provocative. It’s sensationalism, and we won’t be a party to it. It’s salacious, outrageous and contagious.

It’s contagious because it went viral last week when Buzzfeed posted the whole thing online, and everyone on social media started posting jokes about Trump’s allegedly paying Russian prostitutes to urinate on a hotel room bed the Obamas slept in.

Professional journalists were shocked, and appalled, and outraged, perhaps even redundant, because this top-secret information was unconfirmed, and no one would have ever known about it if Buzzfeed hadn’t posted it.

That’s why we can’t talk about what everyone’s talking about, because if people didn’t already know about it, it could change EVERYTHING, unlike all the other stuff they already heard about Trump.

Like people would say, “I can understand locker room talk about grabbing a woman’s crotch as you go in for a kiss when you’re a star, but where I grew up you just don’t pay sporting women to relieve themselves on the furniture at the Extended Stay. Your mama would whup you.”

So, no matter what that disgraceful, failing pile of garbage Buzzfeed publishes like something Nazi Germany would do, the fact is that we in the lying dishonest media have no idea whether Trump paid women to micturate upon a rental mattress, so we’re not going to talk about it here. I wasn’t there with a camera and a big fuzzy microphone on a selfie stick, as far as you know, so I can’t say whether it’s true or not.

For all I know, it’s Fake News. It’s an illusion. It’s sensationalism. It’s just trying to sell papers, and I won’t be a party to it.

This story was originally published January 15, 2017 at 8:06 PM with the headline "This is blatant sensationalism."