Slate's Jack Shafer wants to bring back yellow journalism. Could sensationalistic muckraking be the future of the nonprinted word? Clay Shirky asserted this month that "Society doesn't need newspapers. What we need is journalism." He didn't say yellow journalism specifically, but maybe there's something to that argument. Even as newspapers have slid, the demand for off-color items of interest has certainly grown: witness the recently-31 Perez Hilton's fame or the insane amount of visitors to TMZ.
According to Shafer, historian Frank Luther Mott asserted that yellow journalism "must not be considered as synonymous with sensationalism" and should instead be defined by its subjects: crime, scandal, gossip, divorce, sex, disasters, and sports. Given the popularity of these topics online (on Bostonist and elsewhere), it makes some sense that a further infusion of yellow could be just what we need.
Shafer cites a number of benefits to yellow journalism, including H.L. Mencken's well-phrased claim that it "shook up old bones, and gave the blush of life to pale cheeks"—not to mention the hearty pay yellow papers gave their reporters. Furthermore, Shafer describes “the activist nature of the yellow journals, which would set up soup kitchens, send relief to victims of hurricanes, file lawsuits to get government contracts overturned, and, in the Journal's case, once organized a Havana jailbreak.” Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, right?
Downsides to yellow journalism include its tendency toward manipulation and inaccuracy. But given that that's pretty much present (if veiled) in the media already, perhaps we'd be better off shedding any pretense of perfection and leaping into more antagonistic realms. It could build interest, leading to money, leading to the salvation of the field.
NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen recently tweeted, Weak is the need for current information without a strong culture of participation." So maybe the solution to journalism isn't necessarily print, yellow, or otherwise—maybe it's participation, as has been proposed many times over. And maybe the opportunity to "participate" in semi-sensationalistic topics—witness the wild popularity of the Globe's Lucic article today, or its coverage of raining babies—is what people really want.
So should journalism go yellow to save itself? Does it need to? What do you think?
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