False Stories: Big Sellers

I found Chapter 19 in The Press to be a pretty interesting and insightful chapter, particularly the way the press acted prior to WWI. Hearst and Pulitzer were determined to sell papers regardless of whether the material was true or not. After discovering that war stories sell papers, Hearst encouraged his journalists to find anything, and he'll simply construct a story. He was right. These false stories drastically increased the paper's popularity. Due to these false stories, the government came down hard on the press during WWI, basically restricting them from any access to the happenings and events during the war. Interestingly enough, false stories are still hot topics today and sell millions of papers whether in the tabloids or in magazines. As I checked out at a local supermarket, I saw magazines from US Weekly to People talking about absurd stories. Perhaps some are true, but some are certainly not. As we suggested in class, the media is a business and the bottom line matters. The question becomes, at what expense?