News media

News media for the most part 

tells truth like advertising

diluted and adulterated 

yet never quite untrue

and so it is at its best 

serving demagoguery

which the gullible public 

swallowing it all up

sadly promotes its doing.  

Sensation sells.

Social media in this digital age

propagates news in fragments 

emotionally loaded like sound bites

without rational argumentation

and diminishes truth even more. 

Sensation screams.
Sensation smears.

Media has been degrading

democracy into mediacracy

and will undoubtedly help it
corrupt into mobocracy.

What are we to do, oh what to do.

As when lost in a deep forest

we must walk on bravely

even if we are not sure which way 
alert to any sign of escape
for if we stall we perish.