Frank Luther Mott identifies yellow journalism based on five characteristics:

1. scare headlines in huge print, often of minor news
2. lavish use of pictures, or imaginary drawings
3. use of faked interviews, misleading headlines, pseudoscience, and a parade of false learning from so-called experts
4. emphasis on full-color Sunday supplements, usually with comic strips
5. dramatic sympathy with the "underdog" against the system.

I remember years ago, in one of the British tabloids, they’d printed a picture of a red London bus in the Arctic, with some crazy article attached and the editor. And the editor said, they’d gotten letters from readers - one saying he’d been a conductor on the bus and others that they’d been passengers on that bus and still have tickets from the ride. Loved that.