Yellow Journalism and PR

Tio this day, "yellow journalism" continues to be one of the most infamous phrases in the history of the news profession. It was coined by a man named Erwin Wardman, editor of The New York Post, near the end of the nineteenth century  one day while describing the circulation battle between papers owned by Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. In an effort to out-do the other, the two peppered their papers with sensational and misleading headlines designed to make theier publications irresisitable to potential readers. In describing the Pulitzer-Hearst battle the way he did, Wardman created a catch-phrase that has come to describe all journalism that leans toward exaggeration at the expense of "the truth."

The height of the Pulitzer-Hearst conflict occurred between 1895-1898. This was apprioximately twenty years before the first formal class in public relations was taught by Edward Bernays at New York University. Around this same time, Bernays also wrote the first book on that subject, "Crystallizing Public Opinion.". Bernays is acclaimed as being one of the early pioneers of public relations. As a practitioner, he gained fame by media events he staged on behalf of clients to promote their various products. One famous example is a parade of models he organized in New York City on behalf of the tobacco industry to help make it more socially-acceptable for women to smoke in public.

This stunt was highly successful, thus establshing Bernays as a leader in the art of pubic manipulation. The so-called style of Bernays does not strike me as being all that different from yellow journalism: purposeful exaggeration to gain attention and ignite public action. How much was Bernays influenced by the actions of Pulitzer and Hearst? How much has the public relations profession been influenced by those two media giants?  Without question, an element of exaggeration can be found in most any act of persuasion. But at what point does public relations cross the line and become "yellow public relations?" When it occurs, it needs to be denounced as readily as Pulitzer and Hearst.