YELLOW JOURNALISM IN MEDIA “A PROJECT FOR BUSINESS ETHICS”


            Yellow journalism is also called the yellow press. It has little or almost no justifiable well-researched reports. To sell, it banks on attention-grabbing headlines or captions. This type of reading materials depicts sensational stories,  overstating and embellishing news and events, and even rumor mongering. The more scandalous the news,  the more they will feature it.


            Yellow journalism has, according to Frank Luther Mott, the following characteristics:  [i]scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news; lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawing; use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudo-science, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts; emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips; and a dramatic sympathy with the underdog against the system.


            The origin of yellow journalism can be traced back to the rivalry between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. To win the circulation battles, both papers dealt with serious reporting as well as sensationalizing news to beef up its circulation.


Another newspaper, the New York Press, invented the name “yellow kid journalism” to refer to the market papers of Hearst and Pulitzer. Yellow kid journalism was the title of a comic strip which both newspapers, the New York World and New York Journal, published.


            To make the New York World sell more, Pulitzer included games, pictures and contests, crime stories and tantalizing topics that captured additional markets. At the same time, he only sold the newspapers for two cents per issue but with more pages to read. Pulitzer put the newspaper, The World, in an obligation to perform a social reform as what Pulitzer believed his yellow type of journalism was doing to society. .


            William Randolph Hearst adopted Pulitzer’s example. This first became evident in his San Francisco Examiner to which he occupied a fourth of its space to criminal events calling the crimes as “morality plays”. He also dotted his newspaper with nudity and adultery stories based on that era on the headline page. 


            At present, there is a permanent apprehension that the ethics in practice to  journalism are being disregarded.  It has been noted that media bias is becoming rampant in reporting different social issues but especially on issues pertaining to politics.


One of the recurrent complaints is with regards to sensationalizing the issues involved to better sell papers. Errors on facts are also becoming  ordinary.  There is also the persistent worry that news media are being manipulated and controlled.  However difficult to establish, allegations on double standard form of reporting or selective reporting are becoming widespread.  


            Moreover, endorsing a politician or a political party creates conflict of interest as this leads to interpretation of favoritism in reporting.


            Yellow journalists  are charged with foregoing preciseness and the subject’s privacy for the purpose of increasing sales. They are most often focused on what will entertain the reader rather than on what the reader will be getting in terms of additional factual information. They also have news but this news are reported in an exaggerated fashion that wise readers read the articles just to entertain themselves.


            Accusations of insensitiveness to interviewees’ feelings are rampant. There are times when they are already intruding into the very personal lives of an individual.  


            However rare it is, yellow journalism can sometimes practice acceptability and decency. Images that may tend to be offensive are blurred or cropped narrowly. Indecent pictures are replaced by descriptions, and very graphic details are deleted.  Subject matters that are alarming and disconcerting to viewers are transferred to an inside page and/or to late evening circulations.


            As of date, yellow journalism has been a persistent problem of media due to certain ethical standards it transgress. 



 


[i] En.wikipedia.org



Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com


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