Yellow Journalism and Sensationalism

 Yellow Journalism and Sensationalism

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In the video "Fake News?!? A history of Yellow Journalism", we can observe various parallels to our current media landscape. It's interesting to compare what was once considered controversial and risky to publish compared to today's media landscape and its effect on all of us. 

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One point I found particularly interesting that the video touched upon was the concept that "boring reality doesn't sell" in which we can observe constant exaggerations through the media because it will acquire the attention of more people- aka deceptive reporting, aka Yellow Journalism. This is a very popular concept specifically amongst celebrities, scandals, events, and even everyday life to make articles and publications appear more interesting to a wide range of audiences. Correspondingly, we can observe this every day through media and it's parallel to the origin of actual Yellow Journalism in which controversial news was published in the newspaper and then circulated amongst people. Now, we have the quickest way of delivering and circulatingYellow Journalism through digital/physical magazines, online articles, social media platforms, newspapers, and even news apps. 

Most importantly, this existence of Yellow Journalism can be quite problematic as the effect of it can and does influence news feed where Yellow Journalism is chosen over news of substance such as the video's example in which The Real Housewives stars were favored coverage over a plane crash resulting in a missing jet- there's just something not right about that. I bet today's society would argue otherwise (don't cancel me!)

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Another prime example of this impact Yellow Journalism seems to have is American legal commentator and television journalist, Nancy Grace, who gained one and a half million viewers over the Casey Anthony case. She typically focuses on nightly celebrity news and current affairs which in my eyes is the incorporation of Yellow Journalism into the news which is supposed to be reliable. Not to say all of her content is exaggerated but we are discussing an incredibly popular TV show, where would the interest in the show be without drama, exaggeration, and potentially stretched facts? 

This age of social media has such a strong impact that the media even influences presidential elections as we've seen with Mr. Trump and his use of Twitter and then celebrities, influencers, and even politician's responses which persuaded people in certain ways leading up to the election. Where can we even find reliable news anymore?

In contrast to the ways Yellow Journalism was once reported, we now have such a fast means of retaining information and ultimately, I believe we are not careful with it. A prime example of this is Cancel Culture. It only takes one post/ publication to have a tarnished reputation. Even in historical Yellow Journalism through article publications. I just believe that society is more wreckless/carefree when posting, people don't think before they post, it's not a news article that requires attention and editing in which one may second guess and analyze what they might publish over a longer time. 

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