yellow journalism

From The Yellow Kid, the name of a newspaper comic.

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yellow journalism (uncountable)

1. (idiomatic) Journalism which is sensationalistic and of questionable accuracy and taste.
   • 1915, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 1, in Psmith, Journalist:

     It is the sort of paper which the father of the family is expected to take home with him from his office and read aloud to the chicks before bed-time. It was founded by its proprietor, Mr. Benjamin White, as an antidote to yellow journalism.

   • 2007 October 24, William Grimes, “Murder by Mail in Gilded Age New York”, in New York Times, retrieved 28 July 2008:

     In the heyday of yellow journalism, newspapers like Joseph Pulitzer’s World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal sent out squads of reporters to hunt down leads and, if evidence failed to materialize, make up stories.

• yellow journalist

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