The Corruption Of Yellow Journalism In The United States

They live in a world where the Kardashian are trending before a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. When something goes wrong they create a story to distract the American people from what’s really going on. This is another way the media distracts us from the truth. Even social media such as Facebook, Google, Twitter etc. Has a problem with fake news polluting their websites. An investigation uncovered thousands of stories being widely shared on Facebook with false or misleading information on Clinton and Trump but Zuckerberg Denies any misleading News on Facebook; How should we trust the media when they corrupt and to spread false news on important information. This creates biased opinions about a candidate that might not be

Most of this has to do with the fact that fake news is biased. People like and share the information that aligns or confirms their beliefs and disregard the information that does not. According to a recent analysis, “information can bring people together or drive them apart… Fake news is divisive”. On the other hand, real news brings the people who agree even closer and persuades the ones who do not. With fake news ruining the flow of this common ground, people have become more and more divided on certain topics (Donath). One important aspect of society that has been completely bombarded with false information is the Presidential Election. In fact, as election day got closer and closer, the most popular stories were derived from false information (Obama). That is a big problem because as voters were trying to make an educated decision on who to vote for, they were being told information that was not even true. Some people say that fake news could have even altered the election results. But why are people believing all this? In order for a piece of information to change someone's opinion on something, they obviously have to truly believe and buy into that information. False news sources have been working to develop ways to get people to think what they are saying is true. One way to do this is by confusing the viewer just enough to not know what is true. Another way is by making their sites look extremely professional and falsely crediting information to trustworthy places (“Fake News and the Internet Shell Game”). Unfortunately, once fake news is produced and in the public, it can change people's views on the

Yellow Journalism is the use of sensationalized and exaggerated reporting by newspapers or magazines to attract Readers (Ch 18. section 2). The writers would make the stories a lot worse than what it really was. People did not respond well to what they were reading.Two journalist, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, sparked war with their embroidered and overblown articles, that poisoned the mind of Americans. so while the journalist instilled a false sense of

“Fake news,” like Pravda during Soviet Russia times, was used in the election to deliberately sway the political views of the voters and increase the support of one party’s side. During the election, “phony articles concerning candidates…emerged…this fake news boosted the image of…Donald Trump…” (“Fake News”). "Phony articles” or “fake news” on social media affected the candidates’ images, thus making voters more likely to vote for one candidate over the other. “Fake news” can be dangerous in spreading unreliable information and planting false accusations about a candidate in the minds of the voters. In 2016, a fake news story was leaked about Hillary Clinton that led to a shooting in a pizzeria,“Incidents such as this demonstrate how potentially dangerous fake news can be and how difficult it is to distinguish…”(“Fake News”). “Fake news” can cause people to abandon their initial beliefs about a person, like a political candidate, and align with the opposing side, destroying a person’s career over counterfeit media. "Fake news” is propaganda used to change people’s way of thinking, like both Pravda and Squealer’s role on The Farm. All of these methods of propaganda were substantial resources in changing people’s minds and feeding thoughts into their minds. They can be dangerous if they are not identified as being false or exaggerated, and can

Yellow Journalism- a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses

The main impact that “ Yellow Journalism ” had on the Spanish American War was to push the United States towards getting involved in that war. William Randolph Hearst is famous for having used his newspapers to push for American involvement in the war.

In the early 1900s American journalism began to change before everyone's eyes. Muckrakers, or journalists that exaggerated and denounced the truth behind government and business organizations, began to appear in newspapers and magazines across the nation. It seemed as though that exposing the government for the lies they told became one of the biggest fads of the 1900s. A muckraker’s form of writing is considered to be yellow journalism, or the exaggeration of events taking place in the world. This form of writing was meant to stir up opinions and cause controversy between individuals in the nation, and stir up controversy it did.

“Fake news can be as simple as spreading misinformation or as dangerous as smearing hateful propaganda.” Fabrizio Moreira once said this alarmingly true quote. Fake news started to be such a big trend that it was coined as yellow journalism. The Spanish American war was ultimately started by yellow journalism.

Modern America is a land where freedom of speech is valued and glorified, that is, if the speaker has the correct opinion. Thousands of veterans have laid down their lives for this constitutional right, yet the left-winged media has taken advantage of their sacrifice, twisting this liberty to suit their own agenda. Because the media has such an immense impact on culture, this bias has spread to other elements of American life. Liberal partiality is prevalent in schools and the entertainment industry, as well as traditional news outlets.

There are so many conflicts in life and when people go to find the truth, the media is the first to be looked at. People like to think that there is correct information from the media but in reality there isn’t. There was a book written by Bernard Goldberg called “Bias” where a CBS insider exposes how the media distorts the news. This books lectures about how news networks need to get a reality check since there is bias fed to the media. This happens when there are a large group of people who think alike that use group thinking. These groups usually get filtered news that are not all so true. The news is supposed to be where people get facts about what activities or events going on in the world. Although stories can be changed when too many like minded people make the decisions on what an audience or reader views.

This all happens because of the poor incentives. When readers don’t PAY for news, the creators of the news don’t have any loyalty to the readers either. Everything is read one off, passed around on Facebook and Twitter instead of by subscription. As a result, there is no consequence for burning anyone. Manipulators can deceive journalists because journalists are not held responsible for deceiving readers.

In the novel 1984, by George Orwell, the media is given immense power, which it uses to deceive the public into thinking their world and their government is perfect. The government uses their power to completely control every word that the media prints. The media is set on such a high pedestal that the citizens’ hang on to every word they print. Today’s dependency on the media is not far off from Orwell’s prediction. The media is also heavily influenced by sources other than facts and truth. The modern news industry, similar to that of the Orwell’s novel, is heavily influenced by political and private sects, which results in biased news and counterfactual information.

It is no secret that the news has always been known to be bias toward a certain opinion, but experts can trace acts like this all the way back to the nineteenth century in early America (Thornton, 2016). During this time period most of the well-known newspapers were explicitly linked to political parties and economic interest. Respected historian Chilton Williamson writes this about the early 1900’s, “The presentation of facts simply as facts, editors and writers reasoned, cannot accomplish the exalted goal of saving civilization” (Thornton, 2016). But what if a leader comes along and believes that the best thing for their country is to use extreme media bias? In 1933 Adolf Hitler changed the meaning of media bias by completely controlling what people saw and read. Hitler eliminated papers against his control, and promoted the ones in favor. By doing this, he forced people to only see what news was being presented in one way, instead of an accurate and fair representation of the entire news (The Press in the Third Reich). This statement is not insinuating that bias with Nazi Germany is the same as modern America, but it is suggesting that bias amongst media allows for a misrepresentation of the truth to the people.

Yellow journalism was a major issue in the late 1890s during the Spanish-American War. The purpose of yellow journalism is to use headlines and report sensational events that draws the attention of the audience in order to sell more newspapers, even if the facts used were not legitimate. Yellow journalism came to an end with the development of objective journalism, which reports facts that are not biased. With the rise of social media, yellow journalism and “fake news” are making a comeback and becoming a “norm” in modern society. The rise of social media is contributing to the amount of yellow journalism and fake news that is occurring, which is ultimately leading to party polarization.

The recent surge in popularity of social media comes with a price: fake news. Fake news is defined as news or media that has been altered or modified. Journalists have begun to analyze why that fake news exists and why it continues exist. Two authors, Eoin O’Carroll and Kevin D. Williamson, both have written articles about fake news. Eoin O’Carroll’s article “How Information Overload Helps Spread Fake News,” discusses how the media has bombarded us with news stories, blurring the distinct lines between real and fake news. Kevin D. Williamson, a journalist for the National Review, writes in his article “‘Fake News, Media and Voters: Shared Reality Must Be Acknowledged” that the news is not fake; it just does not align with one’s personal beliefs. Both authors successfully appeal to their audiences’ emotions and feelings, but O’Carroll is more likely to succeed than Williamson in persuading his audience to try and combat fake news because the writer presents himself as someone the intended readers will more readily identify with and offers evidence that his readers will find more compelling.