Yellow Journalism

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by Catherine Gourley

 

 

One night in 1894, a young newspaper reporter named Theodore Dreiser, who worked for the New York World, was sent to a tenement building to report on a violent fight. Once on the scene, however, Dreiser discovered that the brawl was nothing more than an argument between two neighbors, bleary-eyed from drinking too much beer.

Not wanting to return to the newspaper empty­handed, Dreiser made up a more exciting story. He described the fight as a "piano-banging, glass­smashing uproar.culminating in a riot that required a contingent of police to quell."

"Well done," beamed Dreiser's editor. Knowing the facts were inaccurate, he ran Dreiser's story on page 1.

 

From Propaganda to Yellow Press

The practice of sensationalizing or faking the facts of a news story is called "yellow" journalism. Although yellow journalism continues today (check out those supermarket tabloids that run stories like "Alien Baby Born to Milwaukee Couple" or feature sensational pho­tographs of crime scenes), the real heyday of yellow journalism was the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

One factor that contributed to the rise of yellow jour­nalism in the mid-19th century was poor communica­tion. In 1892, for example, the offices of the Chicago

Tribune had only one telephone. It was of no use, however, when the people a reporter needed to con­tact did not also have telephones. Usually, they didn't.

Verifying the names, the sources, or the specific details of a story might take one or two days while a reporter traveled by horse or streetcar from one loca­tion to another, tracking down witnesses. As an alter­native, the reporter might simply make up the missing details, just as Dreiser had tapped his imagination to concoct a tenement riot.

A second factor that contributed to the rise of yellow journalism was the method of payment for reporters. Instead of being paid a weekly or monthly wage, many reporters were paid according to the number of inches of copy, or the amount of space, a story took up in the paper. Many reporters exaggerated or added details in order to lengthen a story and increase their wages.

However, the most significant reason that many

19th-century newspapers were "yellow" had nothing at all to do with a lack of communication or poor wages. Instead, yellow journalism was the result of compet-tion among newspapers to increase circulation and make profits.

In 1860, approximately 400 newspapers were pub­lished in the United States. By 1900, the number of newspapers had increased to 2,200! Suddenly, pub­lishers were competing for readers. Up until that time, most newspapers had been propaganda sheets. The goal of the papers was not to report news objectively but rather to promote favorite causes and to shape public opinion in favor or one political party or candi­date over another. By the mid-19th century, however, propaganda had given way to yellow journalism.

 

'Yellow' Tactics

"Nine Bodies Found on a Dumping Ground" read an 1872 headline in The New Orleans Picayune. The arti­cle, however, turned out not to be quite as shocking as its sensational (also called screaming) headline sug­gested. The bodies were not the latest victims of a demented serial killer; they were the "discards from a museum of anatomy."

Sensationalizing headlines was one ''yellow'' tactic. Falsifying facts was another. In reporting on the Spanish-American War in Cuba in the 1890s, the yel­low presses reported that a quarter of the Cuban population had died-a shocking statistic but untrue.

Stories about Indian massacres of white settlers on the

Western frontier were also often exaggerated.

In addition, yellow presses were selective about the types of stories they ran, focusing on the seamier side of life: crime, drug use, decadence. A report of a drunken millionaire drowning in his own swimming pool would surely find space in the yellow presses.

The editor of the American Magazine summed up yellow journalism when he said, "We want stories and not merely facts."

The yellow-press editors might not have suffered guilty consciences for faking the news, but Theodore

Dreiser did. The young reporter quit the newspaper business and devoted his career to writing fiction. Perhaps he realized he had a real talent for inventing dramatic characters and conflict. Or perhaps he simply decided that if, he was going to write fiction anyway, he might as well call himself a novelist.