East Greenwich High School Library: Media Bias
A list of clubs who have websites at East Greenwich High School.
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Mind Over Media
Fake News in the 1890's - Yellow Journalism
The Yellow Press, illustration from 1910 depicting William Randolph Hearst as a jester tossing newspapers with headlines such as “Appeals to Passion, Venom, Sensationalism, Attacks on Honest Officials, Strife, Distorted News, Personal Grievance, [and] Misrepresentation” to a crowd of eager readers — Source.
- Digital Public Library of AmericaDigital image collection of yellow journalism during the 1890's.
- PBS The Crucible of Empire - The Spanish-American WarThe Spanish-American War is often referred to as the first "media war." During the 1890s, journalism that sensationalized—and sometimes even manufactured—dramatic events was a powerful force that helped propel the United States into war with Spain. Led by newspaper owners William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, journalism of the 1890s used melodrama, romance, and hyperbole to sell millions of newspapers--a style that became known as yellow journalism.
New Bias Explored
- Word Choice BuffetJust how important is word choice?
The way in which words are used can have a profound influence upon how they may be interpreted.
Taking into consideration examples from the word choice section of this activity, rearrange the sentences below to actively experiment how choosing one word over another can make all the difference.
After you have chosen new words for each sentence click on the go button and an explanation of the slant the new sentence might be leaning towards will appear. Each word is weighted and explanations will appear in relationship to the total number of points each sentence accumulates. Dive in!
Media Watchdogs
There are media watchdog groups who aim to police the news media and check bias. Keep in mind that these groups may operate from their own political bias. For example:
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Media Research Center (for counterpoint, see Cadwalladr, C. (2017, February 26). Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media. The Observer.)