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