Yellow

Yellow is the traditional colour of cities, Chinese people, taxis, gold, warning lights, Jewish people, Dick Tracy's trench coat.  And it's the colour of cowardice, of course.

Did you know where the term "yellow journalism" comes from?  It's from the time around 1900 when tabloid newspapers often published sensationalistic stories for people who could barely read, and often used yellow ink because it was attention-grabbing.  That also explains why the first comic strip, The Yellow Kid, was about a boy dressed in yellow.

Don't get me started on yellow journalism!  I remember after the Central Park rape thirty years ago when The New York Post did a big front page story claiming that the accused had used the word "wilding." (It contributed to their wrongful conviction.) It later turned out that the word, which aroused racial fears, had been made up by the reporter!

A big warning sign was that the claim was attributed to an anonymous source.  The British magazine Private Eye has said that when a reporter is getting close to the deadline and his story isn't up to scratch, the temptation is to fabricate a conveniently anonymous quote.  They once made a list of the Fleet Street reporters who'd written the most stories with unnamed sources!

Oh dear, it looks like I did get started on yellow journalism...