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YELLOW JOURNALISM

YELLOW JOURNALISM. James Gordon Bennett, who founded the New York Morning Herald in 1835, was the first American publisher to introduce sensationalism in news stories, but not until the 1890s was the term "yellow journalism" applied to this kind of news presentation. In 1895 William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the San Francisco Examiner, purchased the New York Morning Journal and began a subscription war with Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper, the New York World. Pulitzer responded in 1896 by creating a color supplement for which staff cartoonist, Richard Outcault, produced a comic strip known

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as the "Yellow Kid," named after the main character who wore a yellow nightshirt. The great popularity of this comic strip led Hearst to drop the price of his paper, to begin his own color supplement, and to hire Outcault away from the World. The role of Outcault's Yellow Kid character in these events lent the name "yellow journalism" to the circulation wars between the two papers and to the sensationalistic journalistic practices that this competition spawned.

Both New York City papers exploited the Cuban crisis of the 1890s, and the reporting surrounding these events was perhaps yellow journalism's most famous episode. Headlines screamed the latest developments and feature stories detailed Spanish atrocities. When a young Cuban woman was jailed for resisting rape, Hearst orchestrated her rescue by one of his reporters and publicized her travails widely. This lurid sensationalism fueled the anger of the American public and made it difficult for President McKinley to effect a peaceful resolution, particularly after Hearst published on 8 February 1898 a private letter by Spain's minister to the United States, which insulted McKinley. When the U.S. battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor, Hearst had a field day. Although investigation ruled the explosion an accident, Hearst used his paper, including the comic strip character "the Yellow Kid," to denounce Spain and whip the American public into a frenzy for war. While some of their practices were outrageous, the tactics pioneered by Pulitzer's World and Hearst's Journal influenced the style and content of newspapers in most major American cities, and many of yellow journalism's innovations, such as banner headlines, sensational stories, copious illustrations, and color supplements have become a permanent feature of newspapers today.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bleyer, Willard G. Main Currents in the History of American Journalism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1927.

Campbell, W. Joseph. Yellow Journalism. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001.

Cohen, Daniel. Yellow Journalism. Brookfield, Conn.: Twenty-First Century Books, 2000.

Theodore G. Gronert

Lisa M. Tetrault

See also Cuba, Relations with; Newspapers; Spain, Relations with; Spanish-American War.