Transcript Yellow journalism and Axel Springer

YELLOW JOURNALISM
GROWTH OF THE POPULAR PRESS
Navangi Fernando & David Chau
YELLOW JOURNALISM
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Yellow journalism is the use of lurid
features and sensationalized news in
newspaper publishing to attract
readers and increase circulation.
It is a biased opinion masquerading
as objective fact. The practice of
yellow journalism involved
sensationalism, distorted stories, and
misleading images for the sole
purpose of boosting newspaper sales
and exciting public opinion.
It is the reporting of a falsehood as a
fact
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Journalistic professionalism as we know
it now, it the ‘opposite’ of yellow
journalism.
Yellow journalism is now often called
media bias.
Reported damaging facts about the
industry.
Now with near instant media coverage,
the lack of care to fact-checking may
also be called yellow journalism.
However, these days the accusations of
yellow journalism tend to be few.
The
onset of rapid industrialisation throughout the world
affected the newspaper industry, allowing access if
machines that could print thousands of papers in one night.
It is believed that this was a major trigger of yellow
journalism – the endless drive for circulation.
In
1898, media was very influential especially in many
developed countries.
During
that time, it was the editor’s view or interpretation of
the view that was printed rather than objective journalism.
With this influence, came power.
Newspapers
began to exploit their role by printing very
biased, often untrue facts just to get an increase in
circulation.
THE NEWSPAPER WAR
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This began before the Spanish/American war where William
Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, journalist of The New
York Journal and New York World, where fighting for
readership in America.
Both journalists saw the war with Spain an ideal subject to
exploit. As American patriotism was so high at the time,
there was great interest from the public about the
happenings in Cuba.
Hearst took special interest in the war, as far to personally
edit all articles about it. Similarly, Pulitzer chose to run
stories that were very elaborated with very violent details.
These stories played on the fears and loyalties of the
American public.
YELLOW JOURNALISM IN POPULAR CULTURE
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In Spiderman, J. Jonah Jameson tries to
convince the public that Spiderman is
the enemy by printing ‘Spiderman:
Threat or Menace?’
In the James Bond movie Tomorrow
Never Dies, the evil media person tries
to start a war between UK and China
through sensationalize news stories.
Also in Harry Potter and the Goblet of
Fire, Rita Skeeter acts as a yellow
journalist.
LORD AXEL SPRINGER
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Axel Springer was born on 2nd of May, 1912 and was a
German journalist and the founder and owner of the
Axel Springer AG publishing company.
After secondary school, he became an apprentice
compositor and printer at the publishers Hammerich
& Lesser-Verlag, his father’s company.
In 1946, he established the Axel Springer Verlag.
Throughout his lifetime, he wrote a couple of books.
During 1968 there is student unrest and there are
riots in front of the publishing building in Berlin. There
are also attacks on the Hamburg publishing bilding
and on Axel Springer’s privet houses.
Shortly after the publishinng company goes public,
Axel Springer dies on 22 September 1985 in Berlin.
ATTACKS AGAINST THE SPRINGER PRESS
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He published the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper as
well as some magazines including the popular radio
and TV program Hör zu.
In 1952, he started the publication of the tabloid Bild,
which became the daily newspaper for millions of
Germans as well as an important influence on the
public.
One article in the Bild was titled ‘Eighteen Year-old
drank Girls’ Blood’ (in German of course) and was
written about a young man who was claimed to have
an obsession with vampires. Apparently he was so
obsessed that he drank the blood of a girl to satisfy
this craze. This wasn’t true but this wasn’t talked about
until the boy’s life had been destroyed and he had
committed suicide.
Attacks against the Springer Press
Henrich Boll, author of The Lost Honour of
Katharina Blum, disliked Axel Springer
especially the way that he manipulated the
media. The novel, published in 1975, was a
direct attack on the whole Springer
organisation. Springer apparently tried to have
it banned but it couldn’t be proved that the
novel was alluding to the company.
 Because of this, Henrich Boll was a frequent
target in the paper in the 1970s.
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THE END