As a college student hearing the presentation about yellow journalism opened my eyes to how much the news has changed. It’s crazy to think that over 100 years ago newspapers were already using rumors and emotions to sell stories, even if those stories weren’t true. The example about the USS Maine is a perfect one. People thought Spain attacked an American ship without any real proof. Newspapers used that story to get people angry and push the U.S. into war. That just shows how powerful the media can be when it plays with people’s emotions.
What’s scary is that we still see this kind of reporting today. With the internet and constant news updates it’s super easy for false information to spread fast. There have been plenty of times where they had to go back and fix or delete stories that were wrong. People stop trusting the news and when we lose trust in the news it hurts our democracy because we can’t make choices without real facts.
The passage also made me think about how news companies care more about views and money than getting the facts right. Sensational headlines grab attention, and the more clicks a story gets, the more money it makes. So instead of quality news, we’re flooded with stuff that’s just meant to make us mad or scared. It’s like we’ve gone back in time to when newspapers were doing the same thing just to sell more copies.
One thing that really stuck with me from the passage is the idea that “history repeats itself.” We’ve seen how bad things can get when the media spreads false stories just to get people worked up. It caused war in the past, and today, it’s causing division and confusion. As young people, we need to pay more attention to what we’re reading and where it’s coming from. We have to be smart about how we get our news.
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