INTERNAL ASSESSMENT

NAME – STUTI SINGH

ROLL NO. – 21/453
DEPARTMENT – BA HONS. SANSKRIT
SEMESTER – GE JOURNALISM 1 SEMESTER
TITLE OF PAPER – BASICS OF JOURNALISM

QUESTION- Discuss the origin and historical context of yellow journalism. Critically evaluate
the character of today’s newspapers in the growing phenomenon of voyeurism.

The term yellow journalism is used to criticize journalists and their publications. It implies they
use poorly sourced material, misleading headlines, overly fancy prose, faked interviews, scare
tactics and questionable science.
The term implies that the publication is seeking the attention of the least educated or most
uninformed members of society through its apparent interest in underdogs. It may be anti-elitist,
praising the wisdom of the common man when compared with the ideas and practices of “the
establishment,” including the medical and financial establishments, scientists and government.
 Yellow journalism further implies that the journalists are more interested in gaining fame
making money—by gaining readership or selling ads—than they are in accuracy, in informing
their audience or discussing serious ideas and trends.
DEFINATION OF YELLOW JOURNALISM
Yellow journalism, in short, means biased opinion camouflaged as objective fact. It involves
sensationalism, destroyed stories, and misleading images for the soul purpose of boosting
newspaper sales and exciting public opinion. The term originate from a series of events around a
cartoon called “The Yellow Kid”.
In 1883 Jospeh Pulitzer purchased the New York World for $346,000. The newspaper
concentrated on human- interest stories, scandal and sensational material. It was extremely
popular, specially the cartoons artist, Richard F. outcault
Yellow journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts.
During its heyday in the late 19th century it was one of many factors that helped push the United
States and Spain into war in Cuba and the Philippines, leading to the acquisition of overseas
territory by the United States.
ORIGIN OF YELLOW JOURNALISM
Have you ever stood in the check out line at the grocery store and read through the front-page
headlines of the magazines on the shelf? Many of these eye-catching headlines seem
unbelievable, but they probably peak your curiosity enough to make you want to look inside and
read more. That is what the magazine publishers hope you'll do, at least. This type of reporting is
known as yellow journalism.
Long before radio, television, and the Internet, newspapers served as a medium for
communicating information to a wide audience. In the late 1800s, as immigrants poured into
American cities, newspaper publishers saw the potential for greater profits through increased
sales.
Yellow journalism is an exaggerated, exploitative, sensational style of newspaper reporting. It
emerged at the end of the nineteenth century when rival newspaper publishers competed for sales
in the coverage of events leading up to and during the Spanish-American War in 1898.
The growing turmoil in Cuba between the Spanish imperialists and Cuban revolutionaries
gave William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the New York Morning Journal, and Joseph
Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, an ongoing story to cover in their newspapers. To
keep Americans entertained and coming back for new developments, these yellow journalists
would often exaggerate events, sometimes fabricating the truth and would present information in
a way that was intended to excite the public and provoke interest, even if the story's details were
not true.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF YELLOW JOURNALISM
The term was used by the editor of a rival paper (Edwin Wardman of the New York Press) in
1897 to describe the journalism practiced by Hearst’s Journal and Pulitizer’s World. He may
have been referring to the two competing “Yellow Kid” comics.
 The competition between Hearst and Pulitzer was heightened by their competition for
department store advertising. The more eyes a paper could deliver to its advertisers, the more ads
they could attract. When Pulitzer’s paper dropped its price to a penny to match the cost of The
Journal, it was counting on advertising revenue to finance its operation.
Though both papers used screaming headlines, gory crime stories, and phrases like “depraved
mobs” and “savage fury,” both papers also continued to produce solid, well-researched
journalism as well.
The peak of yellow journalism, in terms of both intensity and influence, came in early 1898,
when a U.S. battleship, the Maine, sunk in Havana harbor. The rise of yellow journalism helped
to create a climate conducive to the outbreak of international conflict and the expansion of U.S.
influence overseas, but it did not by itself cause the war. In spite of Hearst’s often quoted
statement—“You furnish the pictures, I’ll provide the war!”—other factors played a greater role
in leading to the outbreak of war

VOYEURISM
Headlines are big they are typed in bold print and extent across the whole page, shorter articles
about less important events, lots of stories about famous people.
In the entertainment industry, chasing the personal life of high-ranking celebrities has raised
many issues regarding invasion of privacy and media rights issues. Voyeurism constantly pursue
celebrities to the point where their privacy is infringed upon. Some of these aggressive
photographers are even crossing the line illegally when it comes to this form of invasion. Also,
Paparazzi purposely distort the images of celebrities through their photographs in order to make
their articles and reports more exciting. Celebrities have a personal life, and the privacy that
comes with it should be respected, just like everyone else. Protecting individual privacy is a
fundamental human right, so we must respect the human rights of other people. However,
because they are celebrities, we tend to invade their privacy for grant.

Under the current law, collecting personal information without the consent of the person is a
significant invasion of privacy. However, the general public and photographers do not care about
this when it comes to celebrities’ right to privacy as a basic human right. These days, the general
public abhors companies that are collecting personal information about them under the guise of
better services.

Since June, the media frenzy surrounding the death of Bollywood actor Sushant Singh Rajput
has consumed the Indian imagination. Each development in what has come to be known as the
‘Sushant Singh Rajput case’ is broadcast live on television as ‘breaking news’ to an invested
audience. Which is why it is important to dissect the celebrity culture and invasion of privacy
especially in a country that is largely obsessed with Bollywood. In what is a blatant example of
celebrity culture, Chakraborty’s life was turned into a media circus, in which her every action
was tracked by the Indian media—every minute detail of what she does, when she does it, and
who she interacts with, was readily broadcast day and night on media channels.

HEADLINE: FIR against Rhea in SSR suicide case.

We know, in disturbingly intimate detail, what Janhvi Kapoor looks like without makeup as she
goes out to get a coffee. We know how young Aaradhya Bachchan feels about online school in
the COVID-19 era. We know what Taimur Ali Khan, Saif Ali Khan’s 3-year-old son, eats in a
day, down to the last pea.

This frequent invasion of privacy in the celebrity culture seems commonplace in a world in
which we are privy to everything that celebrities eat, drink, own, and wear. In addition, many
consider this lack of privacy to simply be an occupational hazard of being a figure in the public
eye—if one doesn’t want to be documented to such an extent, one shouldn’t want to become a
famous personality, right?
It’s visible in recent news ……

Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli’s fans are calling out the cameraman and broadcaster for
revealing their daughter, Vamika’s face, making it go viral on internet. The couple is very
concerned about their little munchkin’s privacy and are often spotted protecting her face from
getting captured by paparazzi. However, their daughter’s privacy was breached when official
cameraman, at cricket match of India vs South Africa at Cape Town, zoomed in at the PK star,
holding her baby.

HEADLINE: Virat Kohli’s daughter Vamika Kohli face revealed

REFERENCE
 U.S. Diplomacy and Yellow Journalism, 1895-1898
 Encyclopedia of Journalism , Tabloid newspaper
 Newspaper – Hindustan Times, Times of Delhi