RESEARCH PROJECT

On
YELLOW JOURNALISM AND ITS SOCIAL IMPACT
Submitted to

MAHARASHTRA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY,

AURANGABAD

Submitted by
SANA MARIYAM

B.A.L.L.B. (Hons.) Semester- II

Roll no. 2022/BALLB/82
BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Under the guidance of

Ms. MAHENAZ HAQUE
Professor of Business Communication
Maharashtra National Law University, Aurangabad
DECLARATION

This declaration is made at Aurangabad that this project is prepared and drafted by me, Sana
Mariyam.

It contains the project work that was assigned to me during my 2nd Semester period, and

successfully accomplished from my side.

This project is a sincere attempt at compilation of the aforementioned work.

This has not been submitted, either in whole or in part, to any other Law University or

affiliated Institute under which any University is recognized by the Bar Council of India, for

the award of any other law degree or diploma, within the territory of India.

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INDEX

SR. NO. TITLE PAGE NO.

1 INTRODUCTION 3

2 WHAT IS YELLOW JOURNALISM? 4

3 HISTORY OF YELLOW JOURNALISM 6

4 EFFECTS OF YELLOW JOURNALISM 9

5 DOES YELLOW JOURNALISM EXISTS 11

TODAY?

7 CONCLUSION 15

8 REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 16

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INTRODUCTION

"Yellow Journalism" refers to the practise of producing sensationalist content in order to

boost newspaper sales. The term "war of the presses" was popularised in the 1890s to
describe the fierce struggle between two New York City newspapers, the World and the
Journal.

1906 William Randolph Hearst, In 1883, Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World and
quickly became the country's most popular newspaper publisher through a combination of
colourful, sensationalist reporting and crusades against governmental corruption and social
injustice. In 1895, William Randolph Hearst, the son of a California mining tycoon,
relocated to New York City and purchased the competing Journal, threatening his reign.
After turning the San Francisco Examiner into a massively popular mass-circulation paper,
Hearst made it clear that he planned to accomplish the same in New York City by raising
the bar for sensationalism, crusades, and Sunday features. Richard F. Outcault, a cartoonist
who had developed an incredibly popular comic picture series, The Yellow Kid, for the
Sunday World, was one of the people he hired away from Pulitzer's paper and brought with
him from San Francisco. As a result of Outcault's departure, George B. Luks drew the
comic for the World, and the rivalry between the two picture series generated so much
interest that it was dubbed "yellow journalism" by the press. Both journals saw significant
increases in readership as a result of the intense competition and advertising that
accompanied it.

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 CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS YELLOW JOURNALISM?

Yellow journalism is a style of reporting that aims to directly appeal to the reader's
emotions through sensationalism, grotesque dramatization, overhype, and exaggeration.
While publishing or engaging in yellow journalism, outlets and journalists abandon any
pretence of objectivity and fairness. Instead, they prefer to mislead their audiences by
leaving out relevant information, presenting facts out of context, or even making up whole
stories. The information is packaged in a way that is easy to digest and plays on our baser
and more emotional instincts. Instead of inquiring, investigating, or making you
intellectually curious, yellow journalism aims to make you emotionally invested in the
subject so that you make judgements based on your gut rather than your head.

When it comes to "yellow journalism," the tabloids are the gold standard in print. Tabloids
frequently employ the yellow journalism technique of having headlines that "leap off the
page" at the reader. The reader is not given any information from which to draw
conclusions. Instead, the reader is given nothing but a diet of generalisations, stereotypes,
and emotionally appealing but false information. Today's unchecked online media
environment is ripe with outlets spreading false information. Yet, yellow journalism, in
which media owners and operators sacrificed journalistic neutrality for financial gain, came
before the rise of current fake news. Since the inception of news as a commodity to be sold
for profit, there has been "yellow journalism," or reporting that is less fact-based and more
emotionally driven. Yet, the original roots of the phrase "yellow journalism" may be traced
back to the rivalry between two of New York City's largest publications for readership in
the city's news market. The founders of these two periodicals are crucial to the history of
yellow journalism: A cartoonist and a conflict between Spain and the United States that
was sparked by inaccurate news coverage.

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1. Why is it called Yellow Journalism?

Two newspapers were competing for readers in the New York news industry in the
late 19th century. Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst ran competing New
York City newspapers, the New York World and the New York Journal.

Richard F. Outcault, a cartoonist for the New York World and a Pulitzer Prize
winner, made a popular comic strip in 1895 starring a young boy wearing a
voluminous yellow nightshirt.

It was titled "Hogan's Alley" and was a comic book. Hogan's Alley's biggest draw
was the yellow youngster, who was solely responsible for the dramatic increase in
sales and reading at the New York World. Over time, journalists' attempts to one-
up one another brought in a decline in standards of honesty and neutrality in the
industry. So that the newspaper wouldn't be boring or dry, the facts were often
twisted and dramatized to match the fictional versions of events that were presented.

As the 19th century draws to a conclusion, this style of reporting will pit Spain and
the United States directly against one another in Cuba and the Philippines. Hearst,
who was trailing behind Pulitzer due to the yellow kid's popularity, offered Richard
Outcault substantial financial incentives to defect from Pulitzer's team and join his
own. While Pulitzer was dead set on winning, he retained the services of a new
cartoonist and continued publication of the yellow kid comic. After Richard
Outcault lost a court struggle with Pulitzer to retain copyrights over the yellow kid
comic, a "yellow kid war" broke out between the two publications. Both periodicals
began featuring the yellow kid, and soon they were racing to see who could publish
the most sensationalised version of the cartoon.

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 CHAPTER 2

HISTORY OF YELLOW JOURNALISM

Have you ever perused the magazine covers while waiting in line at the supermarket
checkout? Some of these headlines may sound too good to be true, but they are
designed to pique your interest so that you will want to read further. At least, that's
what the magazine owners wish for. Yellow journalism describes this kind of
reporting.

Newspapers were used to disseminate information to large audiences even before

the advent of other mass media such as radio, television, and the Internet.
Newspaper owners in the United States saw an opportunity to expand their earnings
when immigrant populations swelled in major cities in the late 1800s.

Exaggerated, exploitative, and sensationalist, yellow journalism is a form of

reporting that has been widely condemned in recent years. It arose at the close of
the 19th century, when competing newspaper publishers tried to attract readers by
reporting on the events leading up to and during the Spanish-American War of 1898.

William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the New York Morning Journal, and Joseph
Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, had a continuing story to cover in the
rising unrest in Cuba between Spanish imperialists and Cuban revolutionaries.
These yellow journalists would exaggerate events, sometimes even making up the
truth, in order to keep the American people entertained and coming back for fresh
developments.

It is commonly accepted that the Spanish-American War was the first "press-driven
conflict." The United States got involved because certain insurgents in Cuba were

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 fighting against the Spanish. The American newspaper industry got involved in the
conflict in 1895, when the rebels again began fighting the Spanish. Based on their
coverage of the situation in Cuba, Hearst and Pulitzer concluded that a conflict
would be good for their bottom lines. The revolt would spur increased newspaper
sales because people would buy copies to keep up with the newest news.

Hearst and Pulitzer both dispatched correspondents to Cuba between 1895 and 1898
to report on the uprising there. These journalists would frequently make up stories
in order to satisfy their bosses at the newspapers. When one artist, Frederic
Remington, cabled his boss that all was quiet and there was nothing to report, Hearst
famously wired back, 'You furnish the photos. "I'll provide for the war."
U.S. President William McKinley dispatched the U.S.S. Maine to guard Havana
Bay in 1898 because of concern that the conflict in Cuba would jeopardise U.S.
commercial interests on the island. The ship went up in flames as it was docked in
the harbour. The explosion was immediately blamed on Spain by the yellow press,
despite their being no proof to back up their claims.

Newspaper coverage successfully galvanised public opinion in the United States in

favour of the Cuban insurgents, leading to the eventual declaration of war against
Spain. The age of yellow journalism has not yet passed. Such sensationalist
reporting can be found in tabloid periodicals, as well as in some entertainment-
focused television and online news channels, today.

2. Characteristics of Yellow Journalism:

1. This form of journalism has been known to use headlines that span more than one
column, and there has also been use of banners that span an entire page.

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 2. There was a specific group of subjects that were always given primacy. Subjects
such as politics, war, foreign diplomacy, and sports were occasionally given front-
page treatment in order to make it more appealing.

3. The news used to make extensive use of pictures and maps more frequently than it
does now.

4. The editors, reporters, and publishers were always up for trying something new with
the format of the paper. In the past, page one of the newspaper would typically just
have a single article in an effort to attract an increasing amount of focus from the
reader. In addition to experimenting with the article itself, journalists and publishers
used to dabble with the accompanying illustration.

5. Given that it has previously been established that there is neither proof nor a source
to corroborate the news, this quality of the news is one that should be regarded as
very significant.

2.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Yellow Journalism

Both Pros and Cons of Using Yellow Journalism in Your Articles

One of the most significant drawbacks of yellow journalism was that no one ever
took responsibility for the inaccuracies that occurred when reporting the news. This
was one of the most significant problems. Also, the article's title was open to a
variety of interpretations, which made it challenging for the reader to get a firm
handle on the subject matter.

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Discussing the benefits of Yellow Journalism, the two most influential newspapers
in New York City, The World and The Journal, reported an increase in daily sales
that reached six figures as a direct result of the practise.

CHAPTER 3

EFFECTS OF YELLOW JOURNALISM

The proliferation of yellow journalism contributed to the development of an

environment that was hospitable to the outbreak of world conflict and the growth of
American dominance overseas; but, yellow journalism did not, on its own, bring
about the war. Despite the fact that Hearst is frequently credited with making the
phrase, "You give the photos, I'll provide the war!", other elements had a more
significant part in the events that ultimately led to the declaration of war. The
newspapers did not concoct anti-Spanish sentiments out of thin air, and the
publishers did not make up the events to which the people and politicians in the
United States reacted with such vehemence. In addition, significant personalities of
the time, such as Theodore Roosevelt, spearheaded an effort to expand American
influence overseas, which had been gathering steam since the 1880s. However, the
yellow journalism of this time period is significant to the history of U.S. foreign
relations due to the fact that its centrality to the history of the Spanish American
War demonstrates that the press had the ability to capture the attention of a large
readership and to influence public reaction to events that occurred on the
international stage. Yellow journalism's tendency towards sensationalism played a
role in building popular support for the Spanish-American War, a conflict that

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would ultimately lead to the expansion of the United States' influence on a global
scale.

In yellow journalism, the truth is frequently distorted or hidden, and there may in
fact be no truth to the story at all. This is more common than you might think.
Yellow journalism was a word that was used to characterise the writing strategies
that were used by William Hearst's New York Morning Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's
New York World when yellow journalism was in its infancy.
Both of these newspaper groups in the United States were competitors to one
another.
Yellow journalism, which these guys practised in order to exaggerate and misinform
the American people about events taking place in Cuba, may have been a
contributing factor in the outbreak of the Spanish-American war.
In spite of the fact that Joseph Pulitzer was generally known for insisting on
accuracy and high ideals that continue to live on even now through his own
established Pulitzer Prizes, his detractors accused him of engaging in "yellow
journalism," which was a reference to one of his newspaper's comic strips titled
"The Yellow Kids."
Even the most conservative newspapers in America still engage in yellow
journalism, albeit in a more sophisticated form, thus the practise is by no means a
thing of the past in the United States.
It is well knowledge that tabloid newspapers like the Star and the Inquirer
exaggerate and sometimes even fabricate the headlines of their stories.
Moreover, even publications that are known for their lack of bias, such as the Wall
Street Journal, have been known to engage in similar behaviour on occasion.
In 1996, ABC News was singled out for reporting that Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu
had labelled the then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a traitor. Further inquiry found

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 that the claim was untrue, but ABC News was nevertheless singled out for its
reporting.
Samples from Pakistani media: The Khabreen newspaper developed as a competitor
group to the two major groups that were already in existence, Jang and Nawa-I-
Waqt. It covered a number of stories that were exaggerated for the purpose of
attracting readers' attention, and it did so by following yellow journalism patterns.
By that time, Khabreen had become a significant newspaper, and after that, it began
transitioning into more of a balanced publication, despite the fact that it still
frequently engages in sensational reporting.
There were a few other publications that tried to follow suit, but they were
unsuccessful because by that time, the general public was aware of the yellow
journalism that Khabreen was promoting.
In Pakistan, tabloids are published in the evening edition of newspapers. Despite the
fact that they have some circulation thanks to their stunning headline, the general
public does not take them seriously.

CHAPTER 4

DOES YELLOW JOURNALISM EXISTS TODAY?

Yellow journalism in the modern day is not all that dissimilar to the yellow
journalism practised in the past, despite the fact that it appears to be more
widespread now. Yellow journalism is the antithesis of traditional journalism, which
is supposed to centre on the presentation of factual information in an objective
manner. It would appear that the competition for clicks and views has led to an
epidemic of sensationalised headlines that are in no way objective and are frequently
not even accurate (i.e., fake news).

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Yellow journalism can be identified by its use of sensationalised headlines that either
grossly overstate the significance of the article's subject matter or portray it in an
unflattering light.

Throughout the past few years, there have been numerous famous examples of
yellow journalism.

1. In the legal dispute between Samsung and Apple, it was reported that
Samsung settled the issue by paying Apple a $1.2 billion settlement in nickels.
The narrative was written in a comedic tone first, but it was afterwards
presented as if it were factual.

2. Ebola is Coming - During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the cover graphic for
Bloomberg Businessweek had the phrase "Ebola is Coming" printed across
the complete cover in a way that made it appear as though it had been
scribbled in blood. This terrible image drastically emphasised what was a very
genuine threat without the need to sensationalise the situation in any way.

3. The newlywed couple, Prince Harry and Megan Markle - The media went into
overdrive when Prince Harry and Megan Markle revealed in 2019 that they
were giving up their titles to live a more regular living away from the public
eye. Every action was reported on, with the ironic focus being on the couple's
desire to remain out of the public eye.

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4. Yellow journalism is illustrated by the extreme media scrutiny that followed
after Covfefe was tweeted out by President Trump. This can be thought of as
an example of yellow journalism.

5. The alarming headline "Baby kidnapped by Eagle" attracted a lot of attention,

however the video that accompanied the story turned out to be fabricated.

6. A guy is shown standing in front of a firing squad in this photograph from

World War I. The accompanying description states that the man was an enemy
spy. In point of fact, the photograph was a forgery, and the photographer had
been pretending to be a secret agent all along. Since then, some have referred
to it as a photograph from World War Two.

7. ABC News stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu labelled
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin a traitor; however, the report
mischaracterized Netanyahu's words and got them wrong. Rabin was the
target of Netanyahu's comments.

8. Once O.J. Simpson was suspected of killing his ex-wife, live coverage of the
police pursuit and subsequent apprehension of Simpson helped to create a
media frenzy about this tragic event.

9. Tiger Woods - The story of his affairs gave the news media a field day, and
they even interviewed sex addicts as part of their coverage.

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10.This tale about a mother who kept her daughter looking young by
administering Botox injections and getting waxing’s is a complete fabrication.
She was given two hundred dollars by the tabloid The Sun in the United
Kingdom in exchange for the confession that she was responsible for the
crime.

11.Octomom is the nickname given to a young woman who became famous after
giving birth to octuplets.

12.The headline "Crazed woman chases Brad Pitt" may grab your attention, but
the truth is that all she was doing was chasing after him to take a picture of
him.

13.Gossip about Celebrities: A great number of tabloids and websites that cover
entertainment news give top priority to exciting tales about celebrities, and
they frequently rely on unconfirmed sources and rumours to attract clicks.

14.Certain publications and accounts on social media promote conspiracy ideas

that are untrue or baseless, typically with the intention of fuelling fear or
outrage among their audience. These theories are known as "conspiracy
theories."

15.Quotes taken out of context: Some news organisations take quotes attributed
to notable figures and present them in a manner that distorts their original
meaning or intent in order to generate sensationalist headlines.

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 16.It is essential to be conscious of the origins of the news that we take in and to
examine the veracity of information before passing it on to others.

CONCLUSION

The practise of journalism known as "yellow journalism" gives more weight to sensationalism and
emotional appeal than it does to reporting the facts. This method of reporting has a lengthy history,
extending back to the latter half of the 19th century, and it is still utilised by many of today's news
organisations. There are a variety of shapes that yellow journalism can take, such as clickbait
headlines, reporting that is inaccurate, conspiracy theories, outrage culture, and celebrity gossip.
Yellow journalism may not necessarily refer to news that is sensational or emotional, but it can
refer to reporting that intentionally distorts facts or completely fabricates stories, both of which can
be destructive and damage public trust in journalism. Even when covering contentious or
emotionally charged themes, it is critical for news organisations to uphold their commitment to
reporting in a truthful and accurate manner. The practise of yellow journalism is not a recent
development.

The fact that yellow journalism has a significant impact, in the sense that it can change people's
perspectives, is something that ought to give rise to some level of anxiety. Fake news is the latest
form of yellow journalism, and it is even more dangerous than its predecessor due to the reach it
has and the way it hooks viewers.

Yellow journalism can get us into trouble, therefore it's important to always uphold our dedication
to the truth when practising journalism as a profession. If we don't, we could face the consequences
of our actions. Each person is responsible for conducting their own inquiry into the matter in order
to establish what is true and what is false. You should never take the information that is given to
you at face value.

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REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. https://www.imaginated.com/blog/yellow-journalism/
2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elizabeth-Meriwether-Gilmer
3. https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-yellow-journalism-definition-history-
examples.html
4. https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-yellow-journalism-definition-history-
examples.html
5. http://www.jdhr.org/publications/media-and-
development/Impact%20of%20Yellow%20Journalism%20on%20Society.pdf
6. https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1253/yellow-journalism
7. https://www.sheridan.com/journals-on-topic/social-media-yellow-journalism/
8. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journalism
9. https://theadvocatesleague.in/blogs/view/AN-ERA-OF-YELLOW-JOURNALISM-
nSDVnN.html

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