Taha 1 Name: Daniah Taha Teacher: Mr.Thompson MYP Honors U.S History Period 1 Date: 21 September 2022 Yellow Journalism Before Yellow Journalism, Spain colonized some countries in South America, gaining their independence and taking control of the world.. This war was known as the “media war” or commonly known as “The Spanish-American War.” The Spanish have been in Latin America for about 100 years, but until then, most of the countries gained their independence in the 1820’s. But it wasn’t all the countries that got their freedom, Cuba and Puerto Rico remained under Spanish control. After a couple of years in 1985, there was an uprising rebellion from people in Cuba as they wanted to be a free country and have their own government. This resulted in the Spanish arresting Cubans, and were put to camp and some soon died because of diseases and starvation, which leads us to Yellow Journalism so, Yellow Journalism was the reason for starting the war, causing USA’S decision by a huge extent to declare war on Spain, because of the misinformation and propaganda of yellow journalism. The Maine ship was not only the reason since Spain and the U.S had a lot of tension before this, and then the newspapers spread around announcing untrusted news, which caused the president to declare war. Yellow Journalism began in 1895 and ended in 1898 so it lasted about 4 years.Review It’s known as biased and sensationalist stories, that are believed by others to be the truth. Yellow Taha 2 Journalism was owned by William Randolp Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer who were both Newspaper owners. William Randolph Hearst copied Pulitzer’s style and soon later, Pulitzer bought another cartoonist to make a new “yellow kid” and this soon became a competition between the journalists which got the name “yellow journalism”. But more importantly, in the 19th century Yellow Journalism was a strong propaganda for others and was very famous and misled, false, and overexaggerated situations. Wanting to earn money and sell more papers, William Randolph Hearst knew that once there was a war with Cuba he knew this would happen. He decided to write about horrifying stories of people in Cuba such as female prisoners, starving women and children, violent fighting, and one fourth of the population dying. Hearst and Pulitzer also published pictures of the violence happening in Cuba. Shortly after, the USA began helping Cuba, and sending troops and military forces. The president then ordered a ship to Cuba known as “Maine” so it could protect the Americans. The sinking and explosion of the Maine ship happened on February 15, 1898, killing 260 men there. No one at the time could find out what caused this, including the Spanish investigators. Some theories were that this might have been caused by a fire, or an explosion. Hearst and Pulitzer knew what was to do in this situation, so he published newspapers blaming the Spanish, saying that they planned the Ship wreck with no evidence, so the whole yellow press put the blame on Spain and both Hearst, and Pulitzer wanted war. A popular phrase at that time was “Remember the Maine” (“The Spanish-American War” 121). President Mckinely sent a message to Spain, requesting independence for Cuba. The Spanish ignored his message, so the congress declared war on April 25, 1898. So since there was a lot of tension between Spain and the U.S, it was easy that this war had happened. Because of all the yellow journalism happening, and the news spreading by Hearst and Pulitzer, Hearst’snewspaper Taha 3 claimed that, “Six months before the Spanish-American War, Hearst’s New York Journal organized the successful jailbreak of a nineteen-year-old political prisoner, Evangelina Cossío y Cisneros. She was a Cuban imprisoned in Havana in a suspected conspiracy against the Spanish military” (Campbell 1). This shows that this was one of the many horrible things that was done to Cubans, including women, that made this article go famous. It also obviously reached the U.S, soon reaching a lot of people which concerned a lot of people and it reached the government which caused tension between Spain and the U.S, before the sinking of the Maine. This also spread information about Spain, implying that they were giving Cubans a hard time, so Hearst wanted to publish as many journals as possible about this, to start the war. “In the decades since the Spanish-American War, many historians and biographers have argued that the yellow press of New York City inflamed American public opinion with months of exaggerated reporting about Spain’s cruelty in countering the rebellion that began in Cuba in February 1895” (Campbell 1). The historians knew that the Cuba-Spanish situation was over exaggerated, wanting to get American’s opinions about this in ways by wanting to over exaggerate citations, making Spain look even more cruel. Many other people during this time including a personal biographer of Hearst spoke out about how this war was unnecessary, not worth it and even called it the William Randolph Hearst war. Another author, Joseph E. Wisan, also blamed Pulitzer and Hearst stating that this war would have not happened if yellow journalism didn’t appear during this period, or the competing with Hearst against Pulitzer (Campbell 6). “That is, the media at their worst can lead the country into a war it otherwise would not have fought,” (Kennedy, “Did Yellow Journalism Fuel the Outbreak of the Spanish-American War?”). Taha 4 This was said by Joseph Campbell, he stated that the media (yellow journalism) can in fact start the war, but otherwise without this and the public cheering for the war because of the journals, there would have been a possible outcome that the war would have not started. Since almost everyone in the U.S before the Spanish-American war happened were influencing others opinions as well, this reached the president which could have started the war. Since the Maine sinking happened, this all was not enough for Hearst and Pulitzer, and as I stated before they knew that a war with Spain would fuel their journals into selling, they made up stories about the Spanish, and how this was all planned by them, and this was also mentioned by an officer “Hearst and Pulitzer devoted more and more attention to the Cuban struggle for independence, at times accentuating the harshness of Spanish rule or the nobility of the revolutionaries, and occasionally printing rousing stories that proved to be false,” (“Did Yellow Journalism Fuel the Outbreak of the Spanish-American War?”) (“The Spanish-American War, Yellow Journalism”). Since both Hearst and Pulitzer received a lot of fame, they could easily take advantage of the public’s opinion and used propaganda by spreading misinformation about the Spanish, and they knew others would be convinced because of how Cuba still was struggling with finding independence, breaking free from the Spanish, and more importantly not being endangered by the Spanish government. “…to assert that these two journalistic enterprises [Hearst and Pulitzer] were capable of dragging a reluctant nation into battle is both misleading and erroneous.” (Pg.124) Before the war, Hearst sent Remington and Richard Harding Davis to Cuba as reporters to report on what was going on in Cuba. After a year, Remington sent Hearst a note saying that there was no war in Cuba, and that everything was fine, hoping for no war and wanted to come home. But Hearst knew that this was not what he was going to do, and told Remington to provide Taha 5 pictures, and Hearst will provide a war. This shows a huge impact that Hearst had on the war, and that he wanted a war. “Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return.” Hearst supposedly replied: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war” (“I’ll furnish the war” 3). In conclusion, this essay has discussed evidence, and quotes stating how yellow journalism drove the Spanish-American war, and influenced it in a huge amount of propaganda and misinformation. So it should be clear that Hearst and Pulitzer, mainly Hearst influenced people and caused the war in many ways, how Hearst forced people to go to Cuba hoping that it was not doing well just for a war. OPCVL Taha 6 This primary source origin was published and written by the New York Times and published on February 17, 1898. This newspaper’s purpose portrays information about how the Maine sinking was not the Spanish-government’s fault, sounding a note of caution to the people blaming the Spanish so this was targeted towards the people who put the blame onto them. This document talks about what happened in the Maine explosion, misleading the Americans about the causes and reasons of the Maine explosion, the causes of the disasters claimed by others were theories, and the explosion itself in general was an accident. The context of this includes the Spanish government, American public, the survivors on the ship, and the men that were killed. A value of this purpose is to inform the public about the causes of Maine and public held views. Other values concluded that there was no real evidence to the sinking, and people should stop putting the blame on the Spanish. The author’s purpose of this was trying to bring peace with most of the Americans and the Spanish. Limitations of this article include the publishers of this article didn't include the yellow journalist, and the supposed evidence that they had for their “theories”. This was purposely not addressed because there was no proof to the yellow journalist’s theories. Work Cited Taha 7 Primary Source1. New York Times "suspended judgment": A Times editorial on the Maine Tragedy http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5472 2. “Crucible of Empire : The Spanish-American War - PBS Online.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/crucible/frames/_journalism.html. 3. “Yellow Journalism.” Omeka RSS, http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/imperialistexpansion/exhibits/show/the-spanish-american-war/yello w-journalism. 4. U.S. Department of State, U.S. Department of State, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journalism.
