The Yellow Journalism Era began sometime in the late 19th century, arising around the mid 1890’s. It was characteristically defined as a new, sensational, and highly competitive era of news that put a larger focus on bold, and dramatic headlines, alongside emotionally charged language and crusading, “call to action” campaigns.
Coupling with this was the era in which Yellow Journalism arose, which shines some light on why our nation shifted its focus to such a dramatic change in news.
For one, America was historically involved in many wars and issues during this time. You had the late stages of the American-Indian wars, The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and most notably, The Spanish American war in 1898. This is all not even mentioning the fact that we had just got out of a Civil war not even thirty years prior, were in a hate breeded time of the south still holding grudges against the republican north, and the north doing the same to the democratic south, along with the uprising of the Jim Crow south.
It was overall a time of widespread chaos in America, and while perhaps not as chaotic as the years prior, people in the news industry still needed a way to sell papers, to get people’s attention away from riots, protests, and lawsuits, and to turn their attention to papers overall.
Something to note when looking at the Yellow Journalism Era of News, is the economic factors taking hold here.
Something many historians neglect in looking at this era, is the fact that our country had faced its worst economic recession in the Nation’s entire history just a decade before. This was like no other, and would inevitably take longer than a mere ten years to recover from. It far outshined the earlier depressions such as the historical panic of 1819.
In this, a large factor of yellow journalism was circulation. How could one paper outshine and rise to the top against others? In looking at academic research papers on this topic, we find there was a stress on fierce circulation wars between different companies. Everyone needed one thing; money. So how to achieve this goal? The most radical, head turning news stories, bold pictures, bold headlines, bold everything. The journalists of this age wanted to shout at their audiences, to emphasis their stories in any way possible.
Scandal driven reporting was also popular at this time, with many news agencies seeing it as a way to grab the eye of the reader, even if the information wasn’t confirmed. People lost morals at this time, disregarding what or who got taken advantage of. It was all a race to the top, and everyone was intent on winning.
So why does this all matter? What legacy did this era of sensationalism leave behind for us to view? Well, upon reassessing this era of seemingly negative news which preyed upon those unfortunate enough to be taken advantage of by its grasp, you’ll often find a silver lining. That silver lining is that this era gave rise to the many forms of media news we see today, even if not directly. If you truly think about it, many forms of news media we consume today rely heavily on the very same principles the Yellow Journalism era relied on. We still use news today to shock, excite, and emotionally invest audiences. We also find that Yellow Journalism gave a positive legacy in calling out many injustices through its headlines; we find that investigative techniques, attention to the urban poor, innovative layouts, and a more democratic mass-addressing of the nation helped to call to action these injustices. Overall, Yellow Journalism is and was a historical part of not only our nation’s News History, but of our nation’s history as a whole.
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