1. Yellow Journalism

2. William Randolph Hearst
How it all began V.
William Randolph Hearst
Joseph
Pulitzer

3. What is yellow journalism?
Using melodrama, romance, and hyberpole to sell newspapers
Led by Hearst and Pulitzer
1890’s

4. Pulitzer hired another cartoonist to create a second yellow kid.
Hearst copied Pulitzer’s sensationalist style and hired the cartoonist to work for his own paper.
Pulitzer hired another cartoonist to create a second yellow kid.
The journalistic style was soon coined “yellow journalism.”
“Hogan’s Alley”
The yellow kid

5. Hearst: “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war!”
Newspapers relied on sensationalist headlines to sell newspapers.
Hearst knew that a war with Cuba would sell his papers.
Hearst: “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war!”

6. Hearst instructed his reporters to travel to Cuba and write stories designed to tug at the heartstrings of Americans.
Stories talked about female prisoners, executions, rebels fighting, and starving women and children.
These filled the pages of American newspapers.

7. The Sinking of the Maine
After the sinking and Hearst’s paper began blaming the Spanish, U.S. public opinion intervened and soon there was exactly what Hearst wanted…
WAR
The battleship Maine went down in Havana and the Hearst newspapers blamed the Spanish.

8. Often referred to as the first “media war”
Spanish-American War
Often referred to as the first “media war”
Hearst’s sensationalism and yellow journalism was a driving factor in propelling the U.S. into war with Spain.