[2] Mary Margaret McBride, who wrote for the New York Evening Mail, hated the term "sob sister", saying "The assumption that I was good for one type of story made me feel like a sort of second-class citizen.
The spectacle of the newswomen's presence in court and the publicity marketing of the "woman's view" was more responsible for the derogatory label of "sob sister" than the melodramatic style of the women reporters, which was not notably different from the writings of their male colleagues.
[2] An excerpt from one of Dix's articles on the Thaw trial demonstrates the sob sister approach:In good truth, a more piteous figure than the little chorus girl and artists' model could scarcely be imagined.
[4]: 63 From the same trial, a male reporter, William Hoster, wrote in similar sob-sister style:Throwing aside all modesty and pride, sinking every feeling to woman dear, baring her bleeding heart to the world—Evelyn Nesbit Thaw flung wide open the book of her tragic life, that all might read.
[3] Publishers promoted their sob sisters more aggressively than their male columnists, using larger pictures of the women reporters and repeating their names in the headline, as a byline, and as a caption for the photo.
[2] The tear-jerking writing style of the sob sister was often combined with stunt journalism, such as when "Annie Laurie" pretended to faint in the street to do an investigative report of a local hospital.
[4]: 36-37 Hollywood movies featuring sob sisters tended to portray them as women who had to mask their femininity to compete in the cutthroat world of journalism or as vamps playing on their sexuality to get a story.
[3] The 1975 musical Chicago goes further and portrays the sob sister covering the main story, Mary Sunshine, as a pantomime dame—a man in drag waiting for acquittal so he can become their promoter.