Lesson 27 - The United States Becomes a World Power
Reading Further - The Yellow Press Goes to War
In the late 1890s, an intense battle raged in New York City. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph
Pulitzer waged a “newspaper war” to dominate the city’s news business. They relied on yellow
journalism, printing sensational stories to attract readers and sell newspapers. In the process,
they stirred passions that helped lead to a real war, the Spanish-American War.
William Randolph Hearst needed a good story. His newspaper,
the New York Journal, was gaining on the city’s top paper, the New York
World. But he needed a spectacular, front-page story to grab readers’
attention and sell more papers. In the summer of 1897, he got his break.
On August 17, Hearst’s correspondent in Cuba reported that Spanish
officials there had thrown a young woman into jail. The story had all the
elements Hearst was looking for. The woman, Evangelina Cisneros, was the
daughter of a Cuban rebel fighting Spanish rule. She was 18 years old,
beautiful, and appeared to be innocent. Now, the correspondent reported,
she was being held in a filthy dungeon with hardened criminals. Hearst
splashed her story across the front page. He called for an end to Spanish
abuses and freedom for the Cuban people.
Hearst went even further. He began a petition drive, calling on women everywhere to protest the
Spanish action. Many prominent women signed up, including President McKinley’s mother.
Hearst also launched a daring operation to free Cisneros. He sent a reporter to Cuba as a secret agent. In
a dramatic, late-night prison break, the agent freed Cisneros and helped her escape to New York. Hearst
gave her a thunderous welcome, including a parade down Fifth Avenue and a giant rally at Madison
Square Garden. “Evangelina Cisneros Rescued by the Journal,” trumpeted the paper’s front-page
headline.
Hearst’s critics accused him of a hoax, saying that Spanish authorities had allowed Cisneros to
escape. Meanwhile, Hearst took full advantage of the publicity and his role in making history. He was
proud of what he called “journalism that acts.” “It does not wait for things to turn up,” he bragged
proudly. He had a sensational story. Good had triumphed over evil—at least in Hearst’s
version. Newspaper sales soared.
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The Power of the Press
The Cisneros story was typical of Hearst’s
approach to the news business. Newspapers were
very important in the late 1800s. In the days before
radio and television, they were the main news
medium.They played a key role in making news
and influencing public opinion.
New York was the nation’s leading newspaper
town. With a population of almost 3 million people,
it had 15 daily papers with a total circulation of
nearly 2 million copies a day. Other cities, such as
Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, also had a
thriving press. But New York papers set the agenda
for much of the nation’s news.
By 1897, the two most popular papers in
New York were Hearst’sJournal and Joseph
Pulitzer’s World. Locked in a battle for readership,
they used a dramatic style of writing called yellow
journalism to boost their appeal. In fact, it was their
rivalry that gave birth to the term.
The Rise of Yellow Journalism
Hearst, the son of a wealthy mining baron, had bought the Journal in 1895. Although it was a small
paper at the time, he was determined to make it big. He changed the layout to feature large, catchy
headlines and striking illustrations. He filled the pages with society gossip and shocking stories about
crime, corruption, and scandal.
The Journal, like the World, presented itself as a force for truth, justice, and the rights of the
common man. It cast its reporters as brave heroes who solved crimes and rooted out corruption. To
compete with Pulitzer, Hearst was willing to pay more for good stories. As a result, many journalists left
the World and came to work for Hearst.
One of those who moved was the cartoonist R. F. Outcault. His popular cartoon “Hogan’s Alley”
featured a street kid who dressed in a bright yellow nightshirt. The “Yellow Kid’s” antics delighted readers
and made the cartoon a big hit for the World.That is, it did until the Yellow Kid moved to the Journal.
To fight back, Pulitzer produced another version of the cartoon. Suddenly, there were two Yellow
Kids in the Sunday papers. People began to refer to the World and the Journal as the “yellow papers.”
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And the style of the papers—brash, bold, and sensational—became known as yellow journalism. Yellow
journalism became the style in many papers around the country, but theJournal and the World set the
pattern.
The Journal ’s War
In their quest for readers, the Journal and
the World were both drawn to the rebellion in
Cuba. Hearst, in particular, used the Cuban conflict
to boost sales. He clearly believed in the Cuban
cause. But he also saw the conflict as a good story
that could help him win his circulation war with
Pulitzer.
The Journal ran a steady stream of articles
that painted the Cuban revolt in black-and-white
terms. The Cuban rebels were noble patriots
seeking liberty. The Spanish rulers were heartless
villains trying to deny Cubans their freedom. In
printing these stories, Hearst had one goal in mind: to push the United States into war.
In fact, many of the stories that came out of Cuba were false or exaggerated. Spanish officials
allowed reporters little access to the fighting. As a result, many correspondents based their stories on
flimsy evidence or on no evidence at all.
In 1897, Hearst published a series of stories that raised the pressure for war. The Cisneros story
was one of these. Another concerned a search of three Cuban women on an American ship in Havana
harbor. A third reported that a Cuban American doctor had been murdered in a Cuban jail. None of these
stories was entirely accurate, but they all raised a storm of protest in the United States.
More stories followed. Early in 1898, the Journal reported that a riot in Havana was directed at American
citizens, when in fact it was not. Then the paper reported on the contents of a stolen letter from the
Spanish ambassador, in which the official called President McKinley “weak.” The headline read, “The
Worst Insult to the United States in Its History.” Again, readers were outraged. But that story was soon
pushed aside by a much bigger event.
On February 15, the U.S.S. Maine blew up in Havana harbor. Although the cause of the blast was
unknown, both Hearst and Pulitzer blamed Spain. “Destruction of the War Ship Maine Was the Work of an
Enemy,” read the Journal’s headline. Other inflammatory stories followed. Hearst even published a card
game called “War with Spain.”
Two months later, Hearst got his wish. Congress declared war on Spain. On the Journal’s front page,
Hearst gloated, “How Do You Like the Journal’s War?”
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Hearst at the Front
Contrary to his claims, Hearst did not cause the Spanish-American War. Although the Journal and
other yellow papers built public support for the war, they did not make it happen. They were just one factor
in a set of circumstances that led to war.
Hearst was brilliant at self-promotion, however,
and he knew that war was good for newspaper
sales. In fact, circulation figures continued to
rise. As the war began, both the Journal and
the World were selling more than a million copies
a day.
Hearst made sure his paper was at the
center of the action. He sent dozens of
correspondents to Cuba to report on the war. He
even offered to organize and equip a regiment to
fight in Cuba. When President McKinley declined
his offer, Hearst proposed sending his own yacht
to Cuba as a military vessel. The navy accepted
this offer, though it rejected Hearst’s request to
command the ship.
Denied the chance to fight in Cuba, Hearst went as a reporter. He fitted out a ship with food and
medical supplies and sailed to Cuba with some of his staff. There, he filed several stories from the front
lines. He took his reporting duties seriously, though he sometimes got in the way of the fighting. At one
point, soldiers warned him off the battlefield.
Meanwhile, the Journal and the World continued their own battle for readership. They sometimes
stole each other’s stories, rewriting them and claiming them as their own. They also accused each other
of publishing false stories. At times, they paid more attention to their own squabbles than to the war itself.
Both papers spent a lot of money on the war, however. In fact, they spent far more than they made back
in sales. By the war’s end, they were deeply in debt. To cut their losses, Pulitzer and Hearst agreed to
cease their newspaper war. They toned down their papers, thus ending the “golden age” of yellow
journalism.
The two men continued to leave their mark on the news business. Pulitzer funded the country’s
first journalism school, at Columbia University. He also lent his name to the Pulitzer Prizes, journalism’s
top awards. Hearst went on to build a giant media empire, which included radio and film companies. He
continued to shape the news for years to come.
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