COMMENTARY: Combating modern day yellow journalism
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, newspapers used highly charged headlines and stories to appeal to the reader’s emotions and encourage the sale of papers. This style of newspaper reporting came to be known as yellow journalism. This “profit-driven” tactic to selling papers was sensationalistic, often focusing less on facts and more on capturing audience’s attention.
Yellow journalism misinformed the public and decision makers to the point that it led the United States into a war with Spain in Cuba in 1898. Over 100 years removed from the yellow journalism of the 19th century, the same tactics are being employed today to drive profit by capitalizing off of current U.S. political strife. Yellow journalism is not an antiquated media issue from a bygone era; it is alive and thriving in today’s media landscape of 24-hour cable news and internet news sites.
Independently owned newspapers have been steadily acquired by publicly traded conglomerates such as Gannett Co. and Nexstar Media (the largest print media corporation in the United States as of Sept. 2019). Today, almost all of television media in the country is owned by six companies, with five — National Amusements, Disney, Time Warner, Comcast and News Corp — owning the majority of the television news media in America. With news organizations concentrated into a few conglomerates, beating out competition becomes the motivation, not providing essential coverage, much like the rivalry between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst that led to the yellow journalism of the late 1890s.
In today’s age of yellow coverage, empirical facts become muddied in partisan spin and caked in the facade of entertainment. One such instance where sensationalism is utilized is in panels. Quite common in the current cable news playbook, people of different political views are assembled onto a panel and given a subject to talk about. While this might have the making of an outlet for substantive debate, it is an opportunity to make a team sport out of politics. Screaming matches and backhanded quips are what make the coverage sensational, but it is also what keeps viewers watching and engaged.
Panels are not the only way cable news networks sensationalize news. Partisan editorials packaged as balanced news, labels of breaking news around the clock, and even visual graphics that have all the trimmings of a movie poster all contribute to skewing the reality of the facts in order to keep people engaged.
This further complicates the public’s ability to carry out their civic duty of forming opinions and ideas, and then electing representatives who best embody those beliefs. The consumers of this media are not formulating a world view based on correct facts, they are basing opinions from the hyper-partisan outlet that distorts facts for the purpose of capitalizing on eye-catching conflict.
Armed with the knowledge that people tend to agree with stories that affirm their pre-existing world view, or conformation bias, news organizations have catered shows, segments, or their entire platform to a select ideological group in the country. In doing so, news organizations corner an ideological market, drawing in consumers that will be tuned-in and, therefore, financially support them for years to come. Instead of fair and balanced coverage, news companies have made coverage itself more entertaining, appealing to the tribalistic nature of electoral politics.
The effect that the profit-minded news has had on the country is far-reaching. Building platforms rooted in sensationalistic coverage has driven a wedge in American culture on partisan lines. When viewers receive information through a filtered program, they are less informed. Since such coverage is unable to acknowledge nuance and presents issues as black and white not the gray of reality.
Take the on-going impeachment hearings of President Donald Trump’s alleged misconduct with Ukraine as a glaring example. Some news outlets have decided to characterize the hearings as a “witch hunt” while others promote them as essential to protecting the constitution. Both outlets are sensationalizing the news in order to appeal to conservatives or liberals to affirm their worldview and keep them engaged in the coverage. What effect this has on the American public is that people from opposing political parties cannot have an intellectual discussion about impeachment because both party’s perspective comes from a polarizing, politically bent source of news.
Considering the issues that profit-driven sensational news creates, the best way to solve this is for consumers to think carefully about where they get information. Journalism is a public service meant to inform — not entertain and not be beholden to shareholders and conglomerates. Nonprofit sources for information have largely been regarded as least biased in the field. The Salt Lake Tribune recently made the switch to a nonprofit, making it the first legacy paper to do so. Not only does this change in business structure help keep the paper alive, but it also keeps the paper, i.e. information, in the people’s hands. That being said, media outlets are and always will be run by human beings with biases and capable of inserting their voice into coverage. Media Bias/ Fact Check is a reliable source for looking at the biases that media organizations may have.
Journalists should not have the big business interest of their parent company in mind, they should be thinking about their communities and readers who depend on balanced, un-sensational reporting. Sensationalist profit-driven news has poisoned national discussion, that is why profit and journalism should never mix.
