The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-10-29
JOURNALISM THAT IS YELLOW.
Chicago Journal.
What is yellow Journalism"

What is yellow journalism"
1t is term coined, first of all. perhaps.
by the thoughtless, and meant to express
the unspeakable in the passing news liter
AZURE of the day. Yellow is the color that
fever hospitals are mostly painted-a dull.
irab yellow, that suggests the forlorn men,
tai and pitiable bodily condition of the pa
tents within it. Thus the term yellow
journalism implies feverish journalism,
unhealthy journalism, Journalism that is
sickly. leprous, unclean.
Yellow journalism is the Journalism that
prizes into private affairs, that stations i'll
kempt and odoriferous hrelings at key
holes, that lays bare sacred and cherished
household traditions and secrets to the
gaze of the vulgar and debased. 1t respects
no man or woman and no man or woman
respects it. 1t is an enemy of peace, of de-
cency and the home. 1t flaunts vice in the
eyes of innocence and invades the sanctity
of the very church. 1t brazenly plumes
itself on its own effrontery and makes
boast of the horrors of life that it carefully
and persistently reveals.
Yellow journalism is the friend and in
stigator of crime 1t paints crime in allur-
ing colors and so debauches the young. 1t
crowns the brow of the murderer with a
chaplet of laurel. and by the nasty rela-
ton of every circumstance of his homicide
incites in the depraved desire to become
as Infamous as the prisoner himself 1T
gives the thief the praise of printed words
for his acts and initiates, as far as 1t can.
against the law in striving to create for
him an unwholesome and morbid SYM
pathy.
Yellow Journalism does worse. 1t illus
trates its exploitation of crime with afro
cious and deplorable pictures. 1t sets upon
your breakfast table hotch-potch of hor-
rible headlines and grotesque faces that
astound the understanding and provoke the
gorge. 1t destroys the appetite and exas-
perates the temper at one and the same
time.
Yellow Journalism sometimes undertakes
spectacular deeds. By the power of money
thereby rescuing captive heroines from
prison, and expends the proceeds of the
advertising thus gained in the preparation
of further monstrous iniquities against de-
cency and the home. 1t can unearth scan
DIAL; it can ferret out domestic and
fay the sufferers for the amusement of the
vicious and abandoned. 1t can dig into the
muck and bring out so-called news of
the moral deformitieS of the unfortunate
And with II all there is not dollar spent.
not a counterfeit motive sacrilegfously
Usurped, without one ultimate end in view
the gaining or further advertisement and
the eventual reap4ng of hastier profit. Vel
low journalism is, most of all, sordid. Its
aim Is money, and the method of securing
II 10 the ldSl degree QnScrupulOuS and bal.
Under the impudent pretense of concern
for the worhngmans welfare it bam-
BOOBIES him with its mendacity and de-
frauds him of his pence. Such journalism
is vice in its meanest form, and the more
contemplate because practiced in the slim
disguise of an assumed and fraudulent
virtue.
Yellow journalism is pander to immor-
atty. Convicts study it: degenerates love
it; harlots swear by it. 1t is an enemy of
the fireside, of the altar and of parentage
1t has assailed the integrity of the Nation;
il has slandered the chief magistrate of the
people with insults too vile for print; II Is
the fetch of nervous prostrates. of nym-
phomaniacs and scum. 1t haunts the soul
lery and combs the sewer. 1t is a sore on
the public body. 1t reeks with its seIf-cre-
ated odors. 1t pokes the glandered nose of
obscenity into forbidden places.
Yellow Journalism. so-called. is an af-
front TO our social life. II is a menace 10
public order 1t is a blot on the commu-
nity's face. There is but one example of il
in Chicago, and that is more than enough