It is undisputable that the Journalism is an important wing of the society to cater the people of the Society with the information of what is happening in the world.  But if it exceeds its limits and reports in a way that it makes any one suffer and plays with the life or career of someone with the distracted and exaggerated news in the effort to sensationalize them to suit the purpose with the only purpose of increasing the circulation of the news paper, it is called yellow journalism.   

Now with the development in the Information Technology, so many ways of reporting or spreading news have come up like TV Channels, Web News Portals and Social Networking.  

Some of the web portals do not have an address to contact them back.  They are simply cashing on the rumors not bothering about the verification of the authenticity of the information.  They try to get popular at the cost of others and without a chance of getting caught in the absence of their contact address.   Recently a small portion of an artist’s life is exposed by some web news portals as if it is a crime against the society or a conspiracy against the nation.

TV Channels are also exaggerating a small issue to increase their viewership ratings.  A smalltime artist’s affair with some businessman was exposed by TV Channels and made it a sensational news.  A small artist faces many problems and finance is the major one among them.  They have to maintain their body, glamour and social relations all the time in order to stay in the profession.  Sometimes they may have to ‘cooperate’ with connecting people to live.  If it is a sin or a cancerous thing in the society and if the TV channels feel taking the responsibility of eradicating from the society, they can go to the colonies to expose it where prostitution is going on.  

But, it becomes sensational only when an artist from the fields of film or TV industry does it.  So many things happen in the society like road accidents, prostituting, living in relationship, marriages breaking up, divorces and many other but they become sensational only when the news belong to a public figure, celebrity or a known artist or politician.

In a frenzy of making their portals enriched with the latest and sensational news, the owners of the portals think that they should go with an act of copy paste the news with a touch of their own to make a change or two here and there but without having a feel of need of getting it verified as to the accuracy of it.   

Even the TV channels that are having their own portals also did the same thing but condemned it on their channels as if it is the practice of other portals but not their portal.

In a hurry to post it in an attractive way some of the portals have dug for the photo of the artist and came out with a wrong one in the process and used the same without any verification as to its accuracy.  As a result of it, the married life of the person in the photo disturbed who too incidentally is an artist.  

The Yellow journalism has to be stopped in the best interests of the society.  It serves no purpose excepting the circulation of it with eye catching titles. As the cyber crime officer investigating the yellow journalism puts it rightly, one should feel the pain it gives if the news of that sort comes out about their own family member.  In the recent case of the artist subjected to the practice of yellow journalism, the cyber crime officers’ efforts are commendable in tracing the portals, sending notices to them and bringing them to task.

-SriJa