Yellow Journalism

yellow journalism: see newspaper.

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yellow journalism

In newspaper publishing, the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation. The phrase was coined in the 1890s to describe tactics employed in the furious competition between two New York papers, Joseph Pulitzer's World and William Randolph Hearst's Journal. When Hearst hired away from Pulitzer a cartoonist who had drawn the immensely popular comic strip “The Yellow Kid,” another cartoonist was hired to draw the comic for the World; the rivalry excited so much attention that the competition was dubbed yellow journalism. Techniques of the period that became permanent features of U.S. journalism include banner headlines, coloured comics, and copious illustrations.

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Yellow Journalism 

the most reactionary, mercenary bourgeois journalism, which for the sake of sensation publishes fictitious information, scandalous news, and compromising “facts” from the personal lives of famous people. The term “yellow journalism” was coined in the late 19th century in the United States. In 1895 the New York news-papers the World and the Journal began almost simultaneously to carry a picture on the front page showing a child in a yellow shirt who amused the readers with far from childish statements. A fierce rivalry arose between the newspapers over priority. E. Wardman, the editor of the New York Press at that time, used the term “yellow journalism” to refer to the two newspapers arguing about the “yellow kid,” and the term came into use to characterize the basest bourgeois publications. [9-455-l]