Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"sensational chauvinism in the media," 1898, American English, from newspaper agitation for war with Spain; originally "publicity stunt use of colored ink" (1895) in reference to the popular Yellow Kid" character (his clothes were yellow) in Richard Outcault's comic strip "Shantytown" in the "New York World."
Wiktionary
n. (context idiomatic English) journalism which is sensationalism and of questionable accuracy and taste.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Yellow journalism, or the yellow press, is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism. By extension, the term yellow journalism is used today as a pejorative to decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.
Usage examples of "yellow journalism".
As it was, he was forever associated not only with yellow journalism, to which most people were indifferent, but with socialism (he favored an eight-hour work day), the nemesis of all good Americans, eager to maintain their masters in luxury and themselves in the hope of someday winning a lottery.
Clara's mind was so constituted that she could make the leap from yellow journalism to the fact that Henry James, who had gone off with the key to the front door of the Hay house, had returned it.
It would be much more interesting if you said that the Wynand papers are a contemptible dump heap of yellow journalism and all their writers put together aren't worth two bits.
Earlier, you read how the first federal anti-marijuana laws (1937) came about because of William Randolph Hearst's lies, yellow journalism, and racist newspaper articles and ravings, which from then on were cited in Congressional testimony by Harry Anslinger as facts.
But with the introduction of yellow journalism, each paper finds itself—.
Indeed, for all its faults, the age of yellow journalism contributed greatly to the cause of reform and introduced onto the American scene the tradition of the crusading journalist.
One is forced to admit that up to the present yellow journalism seems to be competing against it with a certain measure of success.
It is our opinion, both now and in the past, that painstaking and responsible reporting is always to be preferred over that other practice which has deservedly earned the opprobrium of yellow journalism.
Toward the end of the plague, yellow journalism had spread a cancerous dread of vampires to all corners of the nation.
What I had overlooked was the fact that Miss Minton was in Cairo, looking for an excuse to seek us out and willing to revert to the most despicable variety of yellow journalism in order to gain her end.