In journalism and mass media, sensationalism is a type of editorial tactic. Events and topics in news stories are selected and worded to excite the greatest number of readers and viewers. This style of news reporting encourages biased or emotionally loaded impressions of events rather than neutrality, and may cause a manipulation to the truth of a story. Sensationalism may rely on reports about generally insignificant matters and portray them as a major influence on society, or biased presentations of newsworthy topics, in a trivial, or tabloid manner, contrary to general assumptions of professional journalistic standards.
American cartoon published in 1898, Remember the Maine! And Don't Forget the Starving Cubans! Such sensationalist cartoons were used to support American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence.
News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. News is sometimes called "hard news" to differentiate it from soft media.
A girl holding The Washington Post newspaper about the first Moon landing – Apollo 11, July 21, 1969
Woodcut by Tommaso Garzoni depicting a town crier with a trumpet
Reproduction of Kaiyuan Za Bao court newspaper from the Tang dynasty
Some European postal routes in 1563
