Modern uses of Yellow Journalism By Hayden Rutherford

Yellow Journalism is by no means a new development in modern forms of media like the articles Paris Wade and Ben Goldman produce for their website. In fact, the term yellow journalism predates the internet, and goes as far back as the 1800's, during the time where people's primary news source was newspapers. The phenomenon of yellow journalism has begun to creep up again in digital forms of media, because of how easy it is for someone to put their work into the open air. Any person with access to the internet can put out their views, no matter how biased they are, and present those views as fact.

In the case of Wade and Goldman, the pair produce content for their website LibertyWritersNews.com, where they are given free rein to produce whatever content they see fit. In the article by Terrence McCoy, when asked if he would like to publish works that he believes in, Wade replies with “In a perfect world”. This shows that the author acknowledges the fact that the content that he is putting out isn’t being held with high standards for him. His motivation for writing his short-sensationalized articles instead of ones that require time and thought is “because no one would click on it, so what would be the point?”

The goal for what Wade and Goldman isn’t to produce content of quality, but to produce content that grabs the attention of a specific audience and gets them to click on their articles. The more clicks the article gets, the more money they are able to make off it. Using emboldened headlines such as “THE TRUTH IS OUT! The Media Doesn’t Want You To See What Hillary Did After Losing...” and “CAN’T TRUST OBAMA, Look At Sick Thing He Just Did To STAB Trump In The Back…”, Wade and Goldman are able to capture the attention of their niche audience and convince them to click on their articles. The more that Wade and Goldman are able to make their headlines stick out, the more likely people are going to want to click on their articles and assess the content for themselves.

While most people would see these headlines and think that they are too outlandish for their content to be of any substance, Wade and Goldman aren’t writing their articles for them. Their articles are written for the people who don’t take in information with a grain of salt and will click on the most exciting headline they see. The reason that the people who read their articles believe so hard in them is because Wade and Goldman know what kind of audience they are writing for and are able to sensationalize the headlines and articles to appease them. Their true focus group is people who don’t take the time to analyze headlines for what they really are, which is bait to get them to click on it.