EOTO #1 Reaction Post

Out of all the topics presented, the one that interested me the most was yellow journalism. I found it to be such an interesting topic because while we no longer use the term yellow journalism, it is still very prominent in modern society. Yellow journalism is just sensational journalism that focuses more on what can increase sales over the facts of a story. Today, we clearly see this tactic being used with click-bait headlines and very opinionated works.

Yellow journalism was started by Joseph Pulitzer and the New York World in 1883. He wanted to capitalize on sensationalism to help increase the sales of the New York World. He accomplished this by having pieces made that dealt with hot topics at the time and incorporating illustrations into his papers.

One of the most famous examples of yellow journalism is how the use of this practice helped start the Spanish-American War. The Main and American ship stationed in Cuba that blew up to what we now know the cause to be human error. However, at the time, the cause for the explosion was unknown, and many newspapers seized the opportunity to be able to sell more papers by blaming the destruction of the ship on Spain. While it was probably not the goal to cause a war, the opinionated pieces stirred up enough public outcry to cause America to get involved and join the war efforts.

Yellow journalism is still seen today and played a huge role in the developmental history of journalism. While it is not called yellow journalism anymore, the effects it has on swaying mass opinion are the same. This is why I found this topic to be so interesting as while it first appeared in 1883 its role in journalism has not weakened.