EOTO: Reaction

 In class, we had the opportunity to listen to our classmates present their EOTO projects, each based on a different aspect of journalism history. It was a great learning experience for all.

One of the most interesting topics I learned about from my classmates was yellow journalism. Yellow journalism is the use of sensationalism instead of facts. Yellow journalism was often used in the later 1800s and early 1900s to entice viewers to read certain publications. 

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Left to Right: Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst

Reading yellow journalism was thrilling for readers because it was interesting, basically like gossip. However, it provided inaccurate facts, which really did a disservice to the public. Yellow journalism created a battle between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

Joseph Pulitzer was a publisher for the New York World, and William Randolph Hearst published for the New York Journal.During the Spanish-American War, these two publishers would battle against each other to see who could write the most "sensational" news. They chose to to this instead of writing accurately and factually. 

Another thing I enjoyed learning about during our presentations was the penny press. These newspapers were cheap because they were produced in bulk. The name penny press comes from the fact that they were sold for just one cent. This is hard to believe in this day and age. Newspapers today are considered cheap when they are sold for a dollar.

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Newspapers being printed in the 1850s in the Penny Press Era

The most important part of the penny press era, was that it made newspapers accessible to everyone. Newspapers used to only be affordable for the wealthy, leaving the middle and lower classes having less knowledge of what was going on in the nation and in the world.

This caused me to think about how much news and information has changed since the 1800s. The idea of being knowledgable about our world is something I think we take for granted in today's day and age. We can take out our phones and see the latest news and updates with the click of a button. 

Even before we had smart phones, news could be quickly delivered on the television. The earliest version of a "television" was not invented until the 1880s, and then it was something not widely available. It was not until the 1950s that the television became a part of many American homes. These ideas and history only highlight the importance of newspapers during the 1800s and early 1900s.

Overall, our EOTO presentations were very thought provoking and allowed me to learn more about journalism history.