Since the beginning of the twentieth century, yellow journalism or yellow press has been used by most media industries. It is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. William Randolph Hearst from New York Journal said that one secret to his success was devising better strategies for luring low-income readers. The strategies include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. The most common techniques are using scare headlines in huge print, lavish use of pictures or imaginary drawings, faked interviews that may cause misleading.
The main goal of yellow journalism is to increase sales and gain profit, hence, yellow journalists have little respect for reporting accuracy and routinely overdramatized even the most mundane events. In Indonesia, yellow journalism usually occurs in the entertainment news and online news. First, on October 2012, news about Novi Amalia who caused car accident that makes 5 people and 2 police officers injured. However, the news coverage was exaggerated by some online media. For example, in tribunnews.com, the headline for the news on October 15 was “Novi Sopir Bugil Akan Berikan Keterangan Sore Ini”, while in sindonews.com, on October 17, the headline was “Novi si ‘Sopir Maut’ Minta Maaf”. Both the contents of news were not related to the headline at all; rather short explanation about the condition of Novi Amalia at that time. Second, the issue about a plan of removal of the Islam Prophet’s tomb (Nabi Muhammad SAW) in 2014. The news was initially spread by 2 media in England, The Independent and Daily Mail. Some of Indonesian journalists made the provocative headline news, such as “Arab Saudi Ingin Hancurkan Makam Nabi Muhammad” on okezone.com, September 3, 2014. The headline is obviously exaggerated since, in fact, the displacement tomb of Islam Prophet is only a plan stated on a paper of a Saudi Arabia’s academia.
Yellow journalism is related to mass society theory which perceived media as powerful influence to undermine the social order, so “average” people are defenseless against the media influence. When the functions of an existing medium are replaced by a newer technology, media companies mostly utilize online media to sell their news─compete each other to attract more audience. That process is called functional displacement. Here, yellow journalists justified their practices by arguing that “everyone else is doing it and the public likes sensational issues, so we are only giving the people what they want, or nobody wants to buy the news.” As the cases above, the journalists believe that the public will be attracted to read their news by using those exaggerated headlines, even though it may lead the readers or public to misunderstanding and disruption of social roles and relationships. Indonesian Moslem may take wrong action because of the anger caused by the false news coverage of some online media. The success of new media often brings a strong critical reaction, especially when media adopt questionable competitive strategies to produce content or attract consumers. Therefore, according to hypodermic needle theory or magic bullet theory, media are a dangerous drug or a killing force that directly and immediately penetrates a person’s system.
Furthermore, yellow journalism is also related to agenda setting and framing theory. According to McCombs, Shaw, and Weaver, journalists and power elites have set the agenda to reconstruct the ‘realities’. The examples of headlines above will lead the public to new perception that Novi Amalia is such darned person and Saudi Arabia has acted arbitrarily toward Moslem. In addition, as cited in Soronka (2002: 265), “media may not successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it’s stunningly successfully in telling its readers what to think about.” While media perceive a phenomenon from certain perception, they also try to explain the situation by highlighting certain aspects of a news story (for example, the news’ headline) to make them more noticeable.
In my opinion, this practice should be opposed since it may cause long-term effect to the society. Fearful reactions to new media will emerge as public consumption of ‘fake’ or exaggerated news. Fearful reactions to new media mean the reaction o new media, such as derision, skepticism, fear, and sometimes silliness. Those online media may got complaint from the public because they think the news produced are less trusted and not appropriate to be read. Therefore, all journalists or media practitioners should follow codes of ethics in journalism. In Indonesia, there journalism code of ethics (Peraturan Dewan Pers Nomor: 6/Peraturan-DP/V/2008) which is protected by Pancasila, law (Undang-Undang No. 40 Tahun 1999 Tentang Pers), and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It states clearly about restriction of producing false, slander, sadistic, and lewd news (Article 4). Although a journalist is expected to produce interesting news to attract the audience, he/she should also consider its factuality, proportionality, and neutrality.