It’s Yellow and Paper
One reason I do not subscribe to the local paper is that I cannot stand the constant, extreme, one sided bias in the news I read. That is why I prefer to read my news from the internet. It may be lopsided in one article but it is not consistently lopsided. When the choice of words always slants towards a specific direction, I no longer wish to subject myself or my family to opinion rather than news. The term yellow journalism comes to mind.
Back before the networks took control of the flow of news into each household and began their visual and audio offensive, before radio there was only newspaper. The only way to get your news was to pick up the daily paper and read what the editors wanted you to read. It is the lack of ability to verify what the papers said that allowed 19th century newspaper magnates like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to sensationalize anything their minds could devise. It reminds me of the editor in the Spiderman movies, only with a greater circulation. When you are the only source of news, anything you print is the truth. And since Pulitzer and Hearst both owned vast publishing empires, spanning several cities, you could not get away from their versions of events. Fortunately, the media no longer has a strangle hold on information and ideas. We as a society have independent sources of information that can correct what main stream media had purposely skewed.
Now yellow journalism was not printed on yellow paper. That is reserved for the business section of the telephone book. Is there anything in common between the yellow pages and yellow journalism? The phrase “yellow journalism” was coined around 1898. Yellow pages were officially launched by Reuben H. Donnelly in 1886. At least they are the same century. Yellow pages try to get your attention so that you will call and buy the service or product advertised. Yellow journalism tried to get your attention by sensationalizing a topic to get you to buy newspapers. Both draw their revenue from advertising. I can’t think of any other major epiphanies on their similarities.
I can provide one difference between them. The term, yellow pages, was first used in 1883. It was used because the printer that was working on the phone directory ran out of white paper and substituted yellow instead. Yellow journalism was not a practice that was started by mistake. It was started to provide an avenue to change public opinion and change societal direction to which ever way the editor desired.
If I could only get the local paper to quit throwing their blue bag of advertisements in my yard I would be a happy man. Maybe I should use the yellow pages and give them a call.
Icool
Cobb
Back before the networks took control of the flow of news into each household and began their visual and audio offensive, before radio there was only newspaper. The only way to get your news was to pick up the daily paper and read what the editors wanted you to read. It is the lack of ability to verify what the papers said that allowed 19th century newspaper magnates like Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst to sensationalize anything their minds could devise. It reminds me of the editor in the Spiderman movies, only with a greater circulation. When you are the only source of news, anything you print is the truth. And since Pulitzer and Hearst both owned vast publishing empires, spanning several cities, you could not get away from their versions of events. Fortunately, the media no longer has a strangle hold on information and ideas. We as a society have independent sources of information that can correct what main stream media had purposely skewed.
Now yellow journalism was not printed on yellow paper. That is reserved for the business section of the telephone book. Is there anything in common between the yellow pages and yellow journalism? The phrase “yellow journalism” was coined around 1898. Yellow pages were officially launched by Reuben H. Donnelly in 1886. At least they are the same century. Yellow pages try to get your attention so that you will call and buy the service or product advertised. Yellow journalism tried to get your attention by sensationalizing a topic to get you to buy newspapers. Both draw their revenue from advertising. I can’t think of any other major epiphanies on their similarities.
I can provide one difference between them. The term, yellow pages, was first used in 1883. It was used because the printer that was working on the phone directory ran out of white paper and substituted yellow instead. Yellow journalism was not a practice that was started by mistake. It was started to provide an avenue to change public opinion and change societal direction to which ever way the editor desired.
If I could only get the local paper to quit throwing their blue bag of advertisements in my yard I would be a happy man. Maybe I should use the yellow pages and give them a call.
Icool
Cobb
posted by Cobb at
6:24 AM
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