Hello Everyone, Today I'm gonna be talking about Yellow Journalism, also known as The Yellow Press in the Thought and Culture Section of Story of America Cards, in the era of it from 1896 to 1900, and it caused a war....so let's find out how that happened.

(What is the Yellow Press?)

Yellow Journalism and Yellow Press are terms used for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate, well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales, Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism.

(Newspapers Cause a War)

At the close of the 19th century, America entered upon a wild and confusing era. There was financial panic and depression, increasing concentration of corporate wealth and the growth of trusts, and the development of a powerful, modernized America navy.

These and other influences fed the fires of war in Cuba and the Philippines and those fires were kept burning by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer and their "yellow presses".

"Yellow press" and "yellow journalism" were terms derived from the comic pages of certain daily newspapers in which "The Yellow Kid", a popular cartoon character who wore a yellow nightgown, was published, "The Yellow Kid" first appeared 1896 in Pulitzer's New York World, and two years later in Hearst's New York Journal.

The two papers, in bitter competition for ever larger circulations, stressed crime, sex, violence, scandal, bribery, and political corruption, This was the stuff upon which "yellow journalism" thrived.

Many thoughtful New Yorkers were outraged by methods these newspapers employed to exploit public emotions on sensitive issues, Both the World and Journal stirred readers' emotions with biased stories about Spanish atrocities and oppression in Cuba, resulting in a public outcry against Spain's continued rule over Cuba.

For several years Hearst and Pulitzer played up this story for all it was worth, Then in January 1898, President William McKinley sent the battleship Maine on a goodwill visit to Havana with Spain's blessings, During the first week in February, Hearst's Journal published a letter it had obtained written by Henrique de Lome, Spain's minister in Washington, to his government.

In it, de Lome insulted McKinley, and Americans were outraged. A week or so later Tuesday, February 15, the Maine exploded in Havana harbor, killing 160 of her crew.

Hearst developed eight pages daily for a full week to the Maine story and chartered special boats to run dispatches back and forth between New York and Havana.

The insinuations in the press continued until a large segment of American opinion and with it in Congress swung towards a call for war to oust Spain from Cuba.

After the war, a different political climate took over the United States, And with it came a different kind of journalism, more inquisitive and more interested in correcting apparent injustices.

(Ending)

And that was The Yellow Press, I hope you liked this and that you learned at least something from it, and to give a hint of what I'm doing next for the series if you are interested; I'm gonna be going into art and talk about an artist who was once a shopkeeper and what Newspapers we like in Colonial America so see you next time.