A GLANCE OF YELLOW JOURNALISM - written in 2018

Credit goes to sources available on the Internet. Many thanks.

Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that does not report accurate and much real news with real evidences and real written facts, articles or incidents in a newspaper without any appropriate basis or proofs.

What is yellow journalism?

Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that does not report accurate and much real news with real evidences and real written facts, articles or incidents in a newspaper without any appropriate basis or proofs. Yellow journalism was a style of journalism that emphasized sensationalism about the facts. It uses shocking headlines that capture attention of the people to sell more newspapers and its sole purpose is to attract people's attention. It includes exaggerating facts or spreading rumours and also the use of explicit features and sensationalized news in the publication of newspapers to attract readers and increase the circulation of the newspapers. Yellow journalism is a type of bad press, used to start spreading bias and / or disinformation to a population through the media, especially the newspapers.

This can be very destructive to anyone who affected by it, causing a bad reputation. Yellow journalism refers to a myriad of bad magazines practices such as sensationalism, inaccuracy, stereotypes, racism, sexism, homophobia or some form of intolerance or incitement to violence. Yellow journalism presents sensational reports in order to inflame emotions and make more money. The term yellow journalism was co-written by the editor of a third competitor newspaper in New York to describe his successful but, in his view, unseemly approach to the news.

How Yellow Journalism started and its journey

During its heyday at the end of the 19th century, it was one of the many factors that helped the United States and Spain to go to war in Cuba and the Philippines, which led to the acquisition of foreign territory by the United States. This term was used by Erwin Wardman to refer to the war between the New York World by Joseph Pulitzer and the New York Journal by William Randolph Hearst. Although some say that the term originated from a comic strip that was published for the first time in the world of New York in which the main character used to wear a yellow shirt. Later, the New York Journal bought the cartoonist who made the comic strip because New York World had to hire another cartoonist who continued with the same character. Although both newspapers were competitors, most of the published news was the same. Both newspapers were criticized for publishing news without a relevant source and real facts also with true information. Many of these eye-catching headlines look amazing, but they probably increase the curiosity enough that look inside and read more. To keep Americans entertained and back for new developments, these yellow journalists often exaggerated the events, sometimes inventing the truth and presenting information in a way that was meant to excite the public and spark the interest, even if the details of the story were not true.

Long before radio, television and the Internet, newspapers served as a means to communicate information to a large audience. At the end of the 19th century, when immigrants arrived in American cities, newspaper editors saw the potential for the greater profits through increased sales. It emerged in the late nineteenth century when publishers of rival newspapers competed for sales in the coverage of the events that led to the Spanish-American War in 1898 and during the same.

Yellow journalism has been one of the worst epithets attributed to those in journalism who prefer scandal and sensationalism to the facts. However, it is interesting that there are multiple stories about how the word was coined. While some believe that the word originated and remained in some tabloids because they used low quality newspapers (paper) that were not as white as other leading newspapers and had rather a Yellow-tone.

There is another story in which people talk about some newspapers using yellow ink. These items essentially sold well only because they used sensationalism and rumours to disguise themselves as news. Then, there is another version, which according to the story, sounds a little more likely.

Joseph Pulitzer had a regular editorial cartoon strip in his newspaper called Yellow Kid. It was drawn by a cartoonist named Richard F. Outcault. Poaching, as we call it today, was the trick used by Hearst to attract Outcault to its publication. This unleashed a pseudo-war between the two, and each tried to outwit the other with more sensational editions. Although Hearst finally won the battle, he left a bitter taste about how journalism was made. Pulitzer during this battle hired another cartoonist and claimed rights over the Yellow Boy. However, both publications used all means to make their paper "salable". The "Yellow Child" was also used to influence public opinion on important issues such as the Spanish-American War. The newspapers of the time did not practice the objectivity that the newspapers fight today. Many historians believe that Hearst, in particular, played an important role in American participation with Cuba during the Spanish- American War. Hearst saw the war as a great opportunity to boost his newspaper sales. It was the first newspaper to place a team of reporters in Cuba to monitor the events that take place there. Hearst published articles of brutality, cruelty and inadequate care to influence public opinion about US participation in the war.

Joseph Pulitzer had bought the New York World in 1883 and, using sensationalist and cross-media reporting against political corruption and social injustice, had won the largest circulation of newspapers in the country. His supremacy was challenged in 1895 when William Randolph Hearst, the son of a California mining magnate, moved to New York City and bought the rival newspaper. Hearst, who had already built the San Francisco Examiner in a hugely successful big-circulation newspaper, soon made it clear that he intended to do the same in New York City by outperforming its competitors in sensationalism, crusades and Sunday functions.

Journalists are, after all, human, and all people will have some prejudice. You can see that this is the case of Fox News, Al Jazeera, BBC and many leading media organizations. However, when this bias dominates ethical journalistic principles, promotes sensationalism, makes rumours the basis of research stories, loses its central purpose. Joseph Campbell describes the yellow journalism as something like a newspaper full of useless news like scandals, affairs, etc. Reference has been made to sensational aspects and making money. Which will explain that in the third world countries, has reached a new level of coercion and creation of money through black mail. Journalists take the reins and make stories and projections that attract the people who matter to be locked in with the help of bonuses and illegal channels.

People of liberal conviction would say that much of what appears on Fox News or Breitbart could be considered yellow journalism because they implement some of the practices mentioned above. It should be noted that Fox cannot be considered yellow journalism because it offers a right perspective, just as a liberal medium like Huffington Post can be considered yellow because it criticizes the establishment with a popular style. A headline like this could make the skeptic wonder about the accuracy of what he's following.

The worst thing about yellow journalism of a political nature is that it can encourage political leaders to implement a disastrous foreign policy. Yellow journalism can also encourage violence against the people of different race, religion or sexuality. Yellow journalism is 'breaking' the news in a way that it creates an exaggerated news for the sake of business and obtaining money. It is followed either to resolve the selfish motives or to fulfill the selfish motives of the political mafias.

Any news that is more or less written and presented in a sensational way. Mostly news related to celebrity gossip or any event that is displayed in a more sensational tone. Where exaggerates the facts to attract the attention and thus the authenticity of the news is lost.

Yellow journalism can lead readers to misunderstandings by the way they play with the words annoyingly, for example, a journalist could put "X has killed for two" and this X is known as the surname of the famous person, and society thinks that it refers to that famous person, while in fact it is simply another ordinary person with the same surname. Well, yes, it's actually based on facts, but why would I put X in the first place? What is your true purpose, do you think? Behind in his story, the arrangement did so well that it easily catches by the eyes. The fountain was bigger. Sometimes he also had pictures or illustrations. It also distorts the news.

Two reporters, Richard Harding Davis and Frederick Remington, were the highest-paid reporters for Hearst stationed in Cuba. When Remington sent a telegram in which he told Hearst that there was not much happening there, Hearst responded with his famous telegram: "You supply the images and I provide the war." This is just a small example of Hearst's sensationalist practices. Hearst also became very involved with the war itself, after much public debate through the dramatized stories of his newspaper, he eventually pressured the President to sign a bill that officially enters the United States in the war. Ironically, the term "yellow journalism" is attributed in part to Pulitzer's involvement in the conflict with Hearst. As we all know, Pulitzer is now famous for his prizes of outstanding journalistic achievement with the Pulitzer Prize.

It can be said that the era of yellow journalism ended shortly after the turn of the century, with the gradual withdrawal of the world from competition in sensationalism. However, some techniques from the period of yellow journalism became more or less permanent and generalized, such as the headlines, the coloured comics and the copious illustration; In other media, especially television and the Internet, many of the sensationalist practices of yellow journalism have become more common. Yellow press newspapers have several columns and front-page headlines about different types of news, such as sports and scandals. They use bold designs (with large illustrations and perhaps colour) and informed stories using unnamed fonts. The term was used to refer to some major newspapers in New York City around 1900 when they struggled to get more readers than rest of the other newspapers.

In 1941, Frank Mott said there were five things that made up yellow journalism:

1. headlines in huge print that were meant to scare people, often of news that wasn't very important.

2. using many pictures or drawings.

3. using fake interviews, headlines that didn't tell the whole truth, pseudoscience (fake science), and false information from people who said they were experts.

4. full-colour parts of the newspaper on Sundays, usually with comic strips (which is now normal in the United States).

5. taking the side of the "underdog" against the system.