The Crucial Factors Behind The Yellow Journalism

Abstract

An important issue in journalism is media distortion. It is cliche to say that “history repeats itself,” but in this case it represents a valid point. Media distortion has been taking place for quite some time and continues to do so today. Since media is rapidly expanding, it is making it more difficult to put a stop on media distortion. The overall topic of this paper is media distortion. To get past the surface, there will be a focus on three different time periods where media distortion took place and how it has reincarnated over time.

The first time period that will be explained is 1898, when the Spanish War took place. More specifically, the reasoning for the United States getting involved in the Spanish War. Media distortion and fake news played a major role in the outbreak of the Spanish-American War and caused a lot of confusion. The second time period that will be explained is 1939, World War II. During World War II, factual information was hard to find, since propaganda was on the rise. Although that was the way of communication, it made it difficult to understand what was true and what was misleading. Adolf Hitler was popular in the use of media distortion and fake news during World War II. The last time period that will be explained is present day. In this case, the focus is on the 2016 Presidential Election. Media distortion and fake news really took off during this election. Misleading information was surfacing all over different media sites and made it incredibly hard to tell what was truthful. During such an important time, journalism was at its lowest point.

Introduction

Media distortion has been a major issue in journalism and is still occurring today. History has been repeating itself when it comes to this journalistic problem. After tracing the way media distortion has resurfaced over time, there were three major time periods that experienced this problem. The first time period is the Spanish War of 1898. Yellow Journalism was a popular type of media that created misleading information. During this time, media distortion played a role in the United States getting involved in the Spanish War.

The second time period is World War II, 1939. World War II was a massive and destructive event in history. Unfortunately, media distortion and fake news added to the chaos. Propaganda was the way of communicating during World War II, and just like yellow journalism during the Spanish War, it was misleading.

The third time period is present day. A popular event that experienced media distortion and fake news was the 2016 Presidential Election. Since Donald Trump and Hiliary Clinton were such different and diverse candidates from one another, there was intense controversy between the two. The media made this problem larger. An immense amount of people on different media sites wanted to join the controversy and make things much more difficult than they had to be. It comes to show how powerful media can be and how it continues to get stronger.

All three of these time periods have experienced a different level of media distortion and fake news, but it doesn’t seem like as time went on, anything changed. The goal of this paper is to explain media distortion from a journalistic stand point and to see if this question can be answered, was anything learned from the past when the issue arose again?

The first time period that will be explained is the Spanish War of 1896. Furthermore, how an issue in journalism made the war expand to the Spanish-American War. Media distortion took place in the Spanish War with the use of yellow journalism. According to PBS, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitizer were the leaders of yellow journalism. PBS described yellow journalism as “melodrama, romance, and hyperbole.” This style of media was considered unique, so it became popular quickly. Lesley Kennedy, a feature writer and editor from Denver, Colorado, wrote a piece on the History Channel website about how sensational journalism added to the chaos of the outbreak between of the Spanish-American War. Yellow journalism was not the number one reason for the outbreak of the war, but it fueled it.

The headlines of the yellow journalism were a crucial factor. According to the History Channel website, the Spanish-American War was considered the first media war mainly because of the powerful headlines. Here is an example “Newspapers at the time screamed outrage, with headlines including, “Who Destroyed the Maine? $50,000 Reward,” “Spanish Treachery” and “Invasion!” (Kennedy). A headline like this was bound to have such a strong reaction, and that is exactly what happened. Like explained earlier in the paper, this specific headline used hyperbole.

Along with headlines, cartoons were an issue. Kennedy explained how yellow journalism cartoons are known for having a “yellow kid” as a character. It made it unique. The History Channel website displayed a cartoon that was created in 1898 of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitizer dressed up as yellow kids, pushing opposite sides of blocks that say “war”. What made this cartoon controversial was that it was influencing the United States into the Spanish War.

With the use of yellow journalism, including newspaper headlines and cartoons, media became extremely powerful. It is fascinating, but scary how media can have such a strong influence on people’s views. The time period of the Spanish War goes to show that media distortion played a major role in leading the United States into the Spanish War. Overall, it was difficult to know what was true and what was misleading.

The second time period that will be explained is World War II, which began in 1939. Media distortion was on the rise during that time because of propaganda. Propaganda was used to spread information and news, but it was hard to tell if it was factual or not. Piers Brendon, a writer for The Guardian, wrote a piece about how propaganda gripped the world and caused major issues throughout history. Brendon explained how Adolf Hitler would have not had as many supporters if he didn’t use propaganda to release important information to the world. Furthermore, “Once in power, Hitler deployed all resources of the state and of modern technology to control German minds,” (Brendon). Hitler used propaganda so consistently that he earned the nickname, “Mahatma Propagandhi,” (Brendon).

Mira Sotirovic, Associate Professor, Department of Journalism and Institute of Communication Research, at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, wrote a piece about the long existence and continuation of propaganda. Sotirovic made an excellent point how Nazi proganda was very intense and evil, that it was to blame for the negative perceptions the public had. Unfortunately, media was displayed poorly during World War II and caused the public to believe misleading information about a pivotal point in history.

The third time period was the 2016 Presidential Election. False information was surfacing the internet about candidates Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. Katie Rodgers, a White House Correspondent for The New York Times, and Jonah Engel Bromwich, writer for the Style section, wrote a piece for The New York Times that explained what people saw on the internet during Election Day. An example was hoaxes, “Hoaxes often gurgle up from the bowels of Facebook, as shares from sites that claim to mix satire with the truth,” (Rodgers, Bromwich). During the 2016 election, Facebook was a main source that tried to fool people. Unfortunately, the hoaxes seemed to be successful.

In an interview with Nick DiUlio, Lecturer in the Journalism department at Rowan University, he gave his thoughts about the 2016 election and the effect media had on it. More specifically, he gave an example about how media produced misinformation about Hilary Clinton. DiUlio said, “...alternative news outlets that were purely founded for the purpose of propaganda, to spread misinformation about Hiliary Clinton and Democrats, came along, amplified by social media, and spoke to a huge demographic that was already so skeptical of American Journalism,” (DiUlio). He called this situation a “perfect storm.” Overall, he believed, “...it genuinely influence the way people thought and voted in 2016,” (DiUlio).

The Major Trends in the Evolution of the Issue

Since media continues to grow everyday, the issue of media distortion is still surfacing. From the Spanish War, World War II, and the 2016 President Election, media has grown off of yellow journalism, propaganda, and fake news. Unfortunately, the media has grown in a toxic way. Just like the 2016 election, Facebook was and still is the problem. Stephen Marche, a contributor for The New Yorker, wrote a piece stating, “Facebook has transformed image-making in politics everywhere in the world,” (Marche). Although Facebook isn’t as powerful in other countries, Marche explained how it has the most power in the United States. Media has become so powerful that it is frightening for the future. Different media sites are created everyday and as a country, there needs to be ways to control the media and what is being released. Unfortunately, circumstances seem to be the same as they were earlier in time, the only difference is the topic that is being talked about.

What We Have Learned

As a country, we have definitely learned how powerful the media can be on people and that media distortion is real. The more people get fooled by the media, the more it will continue. It is a very unfortunate situation because freedom of speech and false information often get confused. Media should be a way of expressing yourself, not a way to mess with people. We have to be careful when using media, this goes for adults and young adults. For example, people have been fact-checking before believing something they have read (Graham). David Graham, a staff writer for The Atlantic, wrote a piece about fake news. Overall, we should find more ways like fact-checking, to learn from past mistakes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this paper explained how media distortion has taken place during three different time periods in history. Although it was three different time periods, and three different types of media, the outcome was the same. Misleading information was surfacing the media during each time period and it influenced the people. Unfortunately, it seems that people were being influenced in a negative matter. The goal is to prevent media distortion from getting uncontrollable. Like stated earlier, there are ways we can try to control it, fact checking for example. Overall, we the people are the ones who can put an end to media distortion and make the media safe.