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William Randolph Hearst Quotes. You must keep your mind on the objective, not on the obstacle. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war. 1898 Telegram to the artist Frederic Remington at the beginning of the Spanish - American War in Cuba, Mar.
Nov 24, 2019 · William Randolph Hearst’s journalistic credo reflected Abraham Lincoln’s wisdom, applied most famously in his January 1897 cable to the artist Frederic Remington at Havana: “Please remain [in...
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Sensationalist headlines played off tensions between Spain and the United States in a time when raucous media found a voice.
The Spanish American War, while dominating the media, also fueled the United States’ first media wars in the era of yellow journalism. Newspapers at the time screamed outrage, with headlines including, “Who Destroyed the Maine? $50,000 Reward,” “Spanish Treachery” and “Invasion!”
But while many newspapers in the late 19th century shifted to more of a tabloid style, the notion that their headlines played a major part in starting the war is often overblown, according to W. Joseph Campbell, a professor of communication at American University in Washington, D.C.
Spanish American War
“No serious historian of the Spanish American War period embraces the notion that the yellow press of [William Randolph] Hearst and [Joseph] Pulitzer fomented or brought on the war with Spain in 1898,” he says.
“Newspapers, after all, did not create the real policy differences between the United States and Spain over Spain's harsh colonial rule of Cuba.”
The media scene at the end of the 19th century was robust and highly competitive. It was also experimental, says Campbell. Most newspapers at the time had been typographically bland, with narrow columns and headlines and few illustrations. Then, starting in 1897, half-tone photographs were incorporated into daily issues.
According to Campbell, yellow journalism, in turn, was a distinct genre that featured bold typography, multicolumn headlines, generous and imaginative illustrations, as well as “a keen taste for self-promotion, and an inclination to take an activist role in news reporting.”
A 1898 cartoon of newspaper publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst dressed as the 'Yellow kid,' a popular cartoon character 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 U.S. public opinion to go to war with Spain.
In fact, the term "yellow journalism" was born from a rivalry between the two newspaper giants of the era: Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. Starting in 1895, Pulitzer printed a comic strip featuring a boy in a yellow nightshirt, entitled the “Yellow Kid.” Hearst then poached the cartoon’s creator and ran the strip in his newspaper. A critic at the New York Press, in an effort to shame the newspapers' sensationalistic approach, coined the term "Yellow-Kid Journalism" after the cartoon. The term was then shortened to "Yellow Journalism."
“It was said of Hearst that he wanted New York American readers to look at page one and say, ‘Gee whiz,’ to turn to page two and exclaim, ‘Holy Moses,’ and then at page three, shout ‘God Almighty!’” writes Edwin Diamond in his book, Behind the Times.
That sort of attention-grabbing was evident in the media’s coverage of the Spanish American War. But while the era’s newspapers may have heightened public calls for U.S. entry into the conflict, there were multiple political factors that led to the war’s outbreak.
According to the U.S. Office of the Historian, tensions had been brewing in the long-held Spanish colony of Cuba off and on for much of the 19th century, intensifying in the 1890s, with many Americans calling on Spain to withdraw.
“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,” the office states. “This sort of coverage, complete with bold headlines and creative drawings of events, sold a lot of papers for both publishers.”
Things came to a head in Cuba on February 15, 1898, with the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor.
The sinking wreck of the battleship USS Maine, 1898.
“Sober observers and an initial report by the colonial government of Cuba concluded that the explosion had occurred on board, but Hearst and Pulitzer, who had for several years been selling papers by fanning anti-Spanish public opinion in the United States, published rumors of plots to sink the ship,” the Office of the Historian reports. “... By early May, the Spanish American War had begun.”
Despite intense newspaper coverage of the strife, the office agrees that while yellow journalism showed the media could capture attention and influence public reaction, it did not cause the war.
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- Lesley Kennedy
Men such as William Randolph Hearst, the owner of the New York Journal was involved in a circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and saw the conflict as a way to sell papers. Many newspapers ran articles of a sensationalist nature and sent correspondents to Cuba to cover the war.
Blames Spain. On February 15, 1898, an explosion ripped through the American battleship Maine, sinking the ship and killing 260 sailors. Americans responded with outrage, assuming that Spain, which controlled Cuba as a colony, had sunk the ship.
Apr 16, 2019 · In a battle for readers, two media barons sparked a war in the 1890s. As U.S.-Spain tensions soared, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst didn’t let the facts spoil a good story.
Despite Hearst’s often quoted statement—“You furnish the pictures, I’ll provide the war!”—other factors played a greater role in leading to the outbreak of war. The papers did not create anti-Spanish sentiments out of thin air, nor did the publishers fabricate the events to which the U.S. public and politicians reacted so strongly.
