Who you Callin’ Yellow?

Apparently my post critiquing the Illinois Times article about food got a rise out of one blogger who called it “yellow journalism.”

What is amazingly ironic about this blogger’s viewpoint is that he accuses us of not getting the facts straight, yet he thinks it’s irrelevant that the Illinois Times article had the production of corn in the United States off by 11 billion bushels! He says, “Whatever the total yield of corn is (and yeah, let’s lump it all together until the bloggers at the National Corn Growers Association can explain to us mere mortals why we shouldn’t – whose your audience, baby?), it is in fact true that only a tiny percentage goes to the fresh market.” Why get the facts straight when they are really not pertinent to your cause? And why try to understand the difference between corn for grain and sweet corn? Who really cares when that is not your point?

The blogger also says, “The wack thing about Corn Commentary’s spit ball is that it’s called “Abundant Food Is Good,” an idea neither Food, Inc. nor it’s reviewer at the Illinois Times contests.” Yet that is exactly what they are doing when they attack American agriculture and food companies. These are the same people who were complaining about food price increases last year and blaming them on ethanol. Yet if the ideas for food production they have were mandated, the increase in food prices would be astronomical in comparison – and much more permanent.

I assume that the blogger was using the term “yellow journalism” as a play on the color of corn, since the definition of yellow journalism is much more in line with the tactics of “Food Inc.” and other activists. Wikipedia gives several characteristics of yellow journalism that more than apply to people like that, including the use of “misleading headlines, pseudo-science, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts.”

Yep, I’m calling you yellow.