Yellow journalism is a form of sensationalist writing that is typically associated with New York newspapers in the late 1890s but that also resembles today’s scurrilous online media environment. The phrase was born of a feud between two muckraker tycoons, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, who jousted for public attention with the weapons of sensationalistic headlines and scandal-mongering reportage.
Hearst was the more bombastic. When the battleship Maine mysteriously exploded in the Spanish-occupied Cuban harbor, Hearst used the event to stoke the political flames of resentment toward colonialist Europe—and to sell more newspapers. His hawkish New York Journal immediately dispatched journalists and artists, including famed cowboy portraitist Frederic Remington, to Havana to report on Spaniards suppressing Cuban rebels. When Remington telegraphed to Hearst that no such conflict existed, Hearst supposedly cabled back, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” The Spanish-American War commenced two months later.
Somewhat ironically, the two barons of propaganda are today frequently touted as honorable media figures. Hearst Media’s assets now include dozens of local newspapers and television stations, plus magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Esquire. And journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, is named after the other cofounder of yellow journalism.
SEE ALSO: BARRON, JOHN; CLICKBAIT; F FOR FAKE; ORDER OF THE OCCULT HAND; QUID PRO QUO GOSSIP