A Good Thing for Journalism
The crusade against
yellow journalism, although it is centred on William R. Hearst,
the father of the type, is not confined to the three big newspapers
he owns in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. He has had numerous
[imitators?], because for a long while his policy seemed to be profitable
and popular.
There is a yellow newspaper in Philadelphia,
a yellow newspaper in St. Louis, a yellow newspaper in Buffalo,
a yellow journal in Detroit, while in numerous smaller cities the
pattern has been followed as closely as the imitators dared. Sometimes,
happily, the innovation has not been welcome. There is a yellow
newspaper in Atlanta which is languishing. The people of the South
comprise some of the best stock in America, and their patriotism
is too intense to allow Unamericanism to flourish among them.
We see yellow journalism now paying
the homage which vice pays to virtue. Nobody’s lamentations are
louder, and even their printed hypocricies [sic] are less disgusting
than the pictorial slobber which they are pouring out. But their
day has come. Yellow journalism is doomed. It can never flourish
on the old lines. Such examples of it as survive the shock of the
recent assassination will be without their past virulence. They
will be a tamed and cowed lot, with their fangs extracted. The public
has had its lesson, and heeds it. It will be a good thing for the
country, and will start journalism back to its old paths of truth,
patriotism and honor.
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