Introduction to the First Media War

Editorial cartoon by Leon Barritt, 1898. Newspaper publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, full-length, dressed as the Yellow Kid (a popular cartoon caricature of the day), each pushing against opposite sides of a pillar of wooden blocks that spells WAR. This is a satire of the Pulitzer and Hearst newspapers' role in drumming up USA public opinion to go to war with Spain.

The competition that drove the period of yellow journalism in the late-19th century resulted in sensational news stories and exploitative reporting from many of America's major newspapers. Chief among this genre of "new journalism" were the famed publishers William Randolph Hearst, with his New York Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, with his New York World. Under their influence, the media gained a new resonance among the public, and with that came a newfound ability to influence policy. One of the most well-known examples of this came when Cuba sought independence from Spain, resulting in a revolutionary war. To the yellow journalists, in particular Hearst, the event created incredible potential for lurid headlines and dramatic articles that would help increase the circulation of their respective papers. Fabricated stories depicting the ruthlessness and tyranny of the Spanish against the Cubans were frequently circulated in the pages of the Journal. According to the traditional view of most historians, it was this campaign against the Spanish that got America involved in the conflict. It is perhaps the most famous instance of the media affecting America's political and military decisions.

An infamous exchange between Hearst and Frederic Remington, an artist working for his newspaper, represents the entire mentality of the press' attitude toward the war. Remington was sent on an assignment to uncover hostilities in Cuba; upon finding there were none — at least not enough to warrant Hearst's crusade — Remington wired Hearst, requesting to be sent home. He replied: "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." Recent scholarship is skeptical this exchange ever took place, but it is used to this day as a symbol for Hearst's journalistic principles.

The Destruction of the Maine

USS Maine entering Havana Harbor on July 25, 1898, where the ship would explode three weeks later.

The explosion of the USS Maine was the major event that intensified the media's interest in Cuba's struggle against Spain. In January 1898, the battleship was sent to Havana to protect the United States' interests in the ensuing war. Three weeks later, an explosion onboard killed more than 270 people. The New York World and the New York Journal jumped at the opportunity to cover the disaster, giving it intense press coverage, and employing the trademarks of yellow journalism — dramatic headlines, melodramatic content, etc. They warped and exaggerated nearly every piece of information they received at the time, occasionally fabricating news and events when none fit the agenda they were trying to set. The World made frequent claims the Maine had been either bombed or mined by the Spanish, when really there was no evidence Spain had sanctioned any such thing. The Journal, meanwhile, took an even more dramatic approach, devoting an average of eight and a half pages every day to news, pictures and editorials about the disaster a week after it happened — Hearst even offered a $50,000 award for the conviction of the Spanish authorities he believed were responsible. Though the Maine's destruction did not immediately spur a declaration of war on America's part, it largely initiated the widespread opinion that peace was no longer a viable option, a viewpoint largely perpetuated by the reporting of yellow journalists.

Wreckage of Maine, 1898

The Imprisonment and Rescue of Evangelina Cisneros

Few stories ever generated such passionate responses to the Spanish's treatment of Cuban prisoners than that of Evangelina Cisneros, an 18-year-old who was arrested during the rebellion after attempting to trap and kill a Spanish officer. Any crime on Cisneros' part was ignored by Hearst, who sided unwaveringly with the young woman. According to the New York Journal, Cisneros was "guilty of no crime, save that of having in her veins the best blood in Cuba." Almost immediately, Hearst set out on a mission to rescue her, using the campaign as a symbol for American involvement in the war. He sent Karl Decker, a reporter at the Journal's Washington bureau, to Cuba, in order to plot Cisneros' rescue. With the help of accomplices, Decker was able to break Cisneros out of the Spanish prison on Oct. 7, 1897. After spending two days in hiding, Cisneros was smuggled on a passenger steamer that later arrived in New York City.

Hearst and his Journal lauded the liberation as an epochal event, crediting it as one of the great journalistic achievements of the century. Not only what this story highlighted to raise circulation for the newspaper, but it was also used to garner support for America's intervention in the war. Even the complicit Cuban prisoners were exonerated by the piece, and the ultimate message pervading Hearst's papers was that, if this atrocious treatment of young Cubans was ever going to end, America was going to have to step in.

Newspapers of the day saw the rescue mission as a hoax, one of the many exaggerated accounts of Cuban prisoner abuse that both Hearst and Pulitzer were known to have run in their papers. These dissenters included The New York Times, which ran an article accusing the entire rescue of being staged, with the Spanish authorities cooperative in the event. Additionally, one of the former editors of the Journal decried the mission, after he left the paper, as "a false bit of cheap sensationalism." However, Cisneros herself debunked many rumors about a planned escape, and many scholars today are still divided over whether or not this was a genuine effort, or a ruse to drum up publicity for Hearst's crusade.

Historical Reevaluation?

Some modern historians do not consider Hearst and his Journal to be the major cause of social hysteria  concerning the Spanish-American War that they were once thought to be. Though the war was undoubtedly exploited by media magnates to sell more newspapers, that branch of yellow journalism was mostly centralized to New York City, with few instances of war sensationalism taking place elsewhere. On a national scale, the government is now thought by many to be a much larger player in shaping the country's attitude toward the Spanish, which eventually resulted in America's involvement in the war. That is not to say that Hearst, Pulitzer and their papers did not have an effect — it is just now thought to be a smaller piece of a larger propaganda machine.

Certain people will go even further with this thesis. In his book The Gilded Age Press, 1865-1900, Ted Curtis Smythe essentially relates the influence of Hearst to that of a supermarket tabloid, creating a present but ultimately superficial fervor among the East Coast public, without any serious impact of lasting effects. Moreover the techniques of New Journalism have been accused of being derivative of those used in the mid-19th century, diminishing their importance and influence. While this minimalist take on Heart's media empire is by no means the majority opinion, historical perspective has shifted the focus of the Spanish-American War away from the yellow journalists. It is possible that, despite what is usually attributed to them, it was not necessarily their war.

Parody in "Citizen Kane" (1941)

Orson Welles' famous debut feature, Citizen Kane (1941), is infamous for its veiled portrait of William Randolph Hearst, and reflected the entire era of yellow journalism. Hearst banned all mention of the film in his newspapers, and it suffered financially because of it. In this scene, Hearst's treatment of the Spanish-American War is parodied, with a warped reiteration if his famous telegraph to artist Frederic Remington. It is a faithful depiction of how many historians have traditionally thought Hearst approached the war.

Bibliography

Campbell, Joseph. "Not a hoax: New evidence in the New York Journal’s rescue of Evangelina Cisneros."American Journalism. Vol. 19.No. 4 (2002): n. page. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. "Not Likely Sent: The Remington-Hearst "Telegrams"." Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly. Vol. 77.No. 2 (2000): 405-22. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies. 1st ed. 1. Westport, Conneticuit: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. Print.

Gullason, Thomas. "Stephen Crane's Private War on Yellow Journalism." Huntington Library Quarterly. Vol. 23.No. 3 (1959): 201-08. Print.

Krauss, Clifford. "The World; Remember Yellow Journalism." New York Times. 02 15 1998: 1-2. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/15/weekinreview/the-world-remember-yellow-journalism.html?src=pm>.

Scovel, Sylvester. "Cervera’s Squadron Discovered by World." New York World [New York City, New York] 06 20 1898, n. pag. Print.

Smythe, Ted. The Gilded Age Press, 1965-1900. 1st ed. 1. Praeger, 2003. Print.

"Propoganda in the Spanish-American War." ThinkQuest. Oracle Education Foundation. Web. 1 Mar 2013. <http://library.thinkquest.org/C0111500/spanamer/app.htm>.

Welles, Orson, dir. Citizen Kane. 1941. Film. 1 Mar 2013.