Yellow Journalism: Why So Maligned and Misunderstood?

Abstract

This chapter finds that a number of factors turned yellow journalism into an enduring and popular term of censure. Its character as a perversely delightful sneer is one explanation. The chapter offers a case that yellow journalism is largely undeserving of the opprobrium that so routinely attaches to the term. The derivation of yellow journalism can be traced to the New York Press, a pro-tariff, pro-Republican daily newspaper edited by Ervin Wardman, a fastidious man who resented and deplored the bold and aggressive journalism of William Randolph Hearst and, to a lesser extent, Joseph Pulitzer. Charles A. Dana, the so-called pope of American journalism, was the brilliant but ill-tempered editor of the New York Sun. He was in his last years of life when Hearst burst upon New York City journalism. In the end, the mythology and misunderstanding that embrace Hearst and yellow journalism are probably too delicious, too ingrained, and too often repeated ever to be fully corrected.