THE HISTORY OF YELLOW JOURNALISM !
YELLOW JOURNALISM
What is Yellow Journalism?
• Yellow journalism can be portrayed in a few different ways. It can be
a very biased story that only covers one side without pointing out
pertinent and even detrimental facts. It can also be a story that has
been published strictly for the "shock factor" and have no basis
behind it. When the truth isn't there and the facts are missing or
twisted, this is when you have yellow journalism.
• Today's fast paced world revolves around technology. It's
everywhere; in our cars, phones, watches, even mirrors.
Everywhere we go we expect to have access to the Internet. We
want to check our emails, our friend's Facebook status and we want
to know today's news yesterday.
What is Yellow Journalism?
• It could be because of our need for instant
gratification that journalists may justify "tweaking"
their story a bit, making sure that they get it out
first. Whatever their reasoning, the internet makes
yellow journalism even easier. You can post
anything you want without checking facts.
Yellow Journalism in Technology
• Picture this, you sit down at your laptop in the morning and you check the
news. A large headline catches your attention, "Baby Snatched by Eagle". You
immediately click the link to the story and there's a video. You watch the
video that, sure enough, shows an eagle swooping down. It grabs a baby and
tries to take off again. The baby proves too awkward for the eagle and it drops
him not a long distance, but enough to make it news worthy (the "baby" was
fine). What a great story, right? The journalist did their job. They found a jaw
dropping story that was sure to bring in readers and they even had a video to
boot.
• Unfortunately, even videos aren't safe from yellow journalism. Shortly after
the news story had aired, proof came out that the video was a fake. With
today's technology one can create digital effects for just about anything. It
turns out that the video had been created by three college students in Canada.
Yellow Journalism in the Past
•Even though the internet is considered to be fairly
new technology and has become a breeding
ground for yellow journalism, it actually started
long before the World Wide Web came about. The
perfect example of this is a picture that has been
circulating around text books, newspapers and
even ads since WWI.
Yellow Journalism in the Past
The photograph on the left shows a man
standing in front of a brick wall
blindfolded and facing a firing squad.
The picture was first published in a
newspaper during WWI. The caption
stated that the man was a captured
enemy spy. The real story behind the
picture is that the photo was staged.
There was a photographer who was
overseas in Belgium photographing the
war. He had taken many staged shots,
this being one of them. Not only was
this photo staged, but the photographer
was actually posing as the "enemy spy".
What is Yellow Journalism?
The photo is now famous
and is used frequently but
has been mistakenly
documented as being from
WWII, or used in a way as to
imply that the execution
depicted actually took
place. It rarely has the true
story behind it.
The Original Yellow Journalism -- Hearst vs. Pulitzer
• The original use of the term "yellow journalism"
came from the vicious circulation wars that the New
York papers engaged themselves in during the late
1800s. In 1883, Joseph Pulitzer moved to New York
and purchased the New York World after a successful
stint in St. Louis. By utilizing flashy headlines and
lurid subject matter in his articles, Pultizer turned
the fortunes of the paper around completely. His
success inspired a large number of imitators.
Yellow Journalism in the Past
Pulitzer's most successful rival would be William Randolph
Hearst, who purchased the New York Journal and lowered the
price to a penny. Through the 1890s the two papers tried to
outcompete each other on sensationalizing the news -- and
often concocting it altogether. Hearst was the worst offender,
and his stories about the ongoing conflict in Cuba between the
Spanish and the Cuban Revolutionaries are credited with
laying of the groundwork for the Spanish-American War.
Many of Hearst's "combat dispatches" were written by
correspondents in Havana's luxurious hotels who used nothing
but their imagination as a source.
Yellow Journalism in the Past
• In many ways this era foreshadowed the rise of the internet.
Paper became drastically cheaper in the late 1800s, leading
to a flourishing of the lower-end publishing business.
Suddenly thousands of people had a forum for their views
and stories that had previously been non-existent. Both
Hearst and Pulitzer's newspapers were dirt-cheap and
appealed to the working classes of the era. More established
papers such as the New York Times and the New York
Press scoffed at the upstarts (the New York Press made the
first accusation of "yellow journalism"), but the success of
their methods was undeniable.
Conclusion
• Before believing everything you read, check
multiple sources. Our world revolves around
technology and information. The ease of the
internet makes it very easy to publish false or
misleading material. While the internet can be used
to spread false stories, it can also be used to find the
truth. Search the facts and don't fall for a story
because versions of it are published everywhere.
When reading on the internet, you have to take
everything in with a grain of salt and question what
you are reading !!!