Thursday, June 03, 2004

Yellow, blue… or green

PS. Red, blue... or violet 

Every two weeks I sit down to write the article that I publish on these pages. I identify an issue and considering myself a reasonably rational man, I dedicate myself to doing a weighted analysis of both sides of the coin and usually I end up identifying myself with an intermediate position.

My next challenge is to find a way to convey the message, both so that the reader wants to read it, and so that he understands it. From the springboard, I prefer to execute a few simple low-score jumps well, than to launch myself with some stunts where, even when the relative score is high, I run the risk of losing the reader ... are they still following me?

After the draft is finished, I hand it over to my wife Mercedes, who proceeds to chop up my five-line sentences into five one-liners. The way she dismantles it into little pieces, and then assembles it, without me even noticing the changes, shows her skill.

Once ready, I send it to Miguel Maita and I wait for the day of its publication, when I see it being born at www. eluniversal.com. Then they begin to enter my email, the not so many, nor the not so few comments:

Kurowski. I hate his yellow ... Aren't you ashamed?

Kurowski. I hate your blue ... Don't you have the slightest sense of shame?

Mr Kurowski. Thank you for explaining it so clearly.

This last comment, without a doubt, does my ego a lot of good, but even in that case I am left wondering if they really managed to capture the beautiful green that I wanted to describe, or if it was only that they saw a still more intense yellow or a blue.

Friends, how do you communicate something when the receiver is no longer able to separate the yellows, blues or green resulting from the mix and only knows how to pick it up on a single unicolor channel? This problem of media color blindness is not exclusive to Venezuela, since it seems that humanity is mutating, probably as a reaction to the exaggerated information volume of the modern world. Will the day come when we will never see green again?

Friends, how do you communicate something when the receiver is no longer able to separate the yellows, blues or green resulting from the mix and only knows how to pick it up on a single unicolor channel? This problem of media color blindness is not exclusive to Venezuela, since it seems that humanity is mutating, probably as a reaction to the exaggerated information volume of the modern world. Will the day come when we will never see green again?


“Communications in a polarized world” A speech at the World Bank Communication Forum May 19, 2004.


A 2022 tweet:
#Polarization
As a response to the modern world’s huge flow of information volume, humanity is mutating. The media is already turning color blind.
Will the day come when we will never again see the beautiful violet that results from mixing red and blue?