Yellow journalism is journalism that is exaggerated, hyperbolic, subjective, or based solely on sensationalism. It presents little logic or poorly researched news that attempts to be "eye-catching" to entice a viewer/audience to read or watch the article. This is done primarily to sell more newspapers or gain more viewers, as opposed to the reporting of truth. Yellow journalism often focuses on scandals, entertainment, sex/violence, or other sensational or exaggerated content. Also called Yellow Press. Check this link for more details.
Is news journalism just entertainment? Why not lie? What use is telling the truth when we know truth is subjective? How can we tell if the news we read or view or listen to is true? Do you believe that "all successful journalism has 'shock value'"? Your thoughts?
- How Two Unemployed Guys Got Rich Off Facebook, Fake News, and an Army of Trump Supporters (The Toronto Star)
- Who's Behind the Fake News (Infowars)
- The Big Lie (Full Frontal, Samantha Bee, Dec. 5)
- Pizzagate (As It Spreads Online and Off, Pizzagate gets Weirder and More Dangerous) (The Verge)
- Chuck E. Sleaze (Snopes)
- Sarah Palin Calls to Boycott Mall of America (Newslo)
- Santa Laws (Snopes)
- Lord of the Donuts (Snopes)
- Adapting to Donald Trump's Lies (Trevor Noah, The Daily Show)
How to Spot Fake News (Lori Robertson & Eugene Kiely, Factcheck)
Snopes is a website that helps fact check to validate and/or debunk made up stories in American popular culture and online news sources.
Factcheck.org is another site (non-profit) that attempts to do the same thing for our media-entrenched culture.
The Straight Dope is another resource you can use.
Fact checking exercise. Fact check the letters to the editor exercise you just wrote. Pretend that you are a journalist and fact-check the work of your peer reporter. Underline or highlight any fact that might be suspect or in need of identifying its source. Share your findings with your peer group.
In the lab, please complete the following tasks (in order):
1. Peruse the following 3 websites of contemporary yellow journalism. Select an article from each site and read it. Notice how the journalist uses (or doesn't use) attribution.
2. Now for the writing project. Come up with some outrageous claims about a topic. Your topic can be about an event, person, or trend. Provide the facts, statistics, hear-say, details about people, places, things, events, quotes, etc. that sound true (or not true). Just like Stephen Glass's notes. Once you have your note sheet completed (see graphic organizer), please turn in.
3. Once enough selections are ready for you, your job for our weekly world news staff, is to select a note sheet and begin writing an article (300-500 words) using these notes to create some yellow journalism. YOU MAY NOT CHOOSE YOUR OWN NOTES! We will likely have to complete this assignment/task next class.
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