Yellow Journalism

Overview

Yellow journalism is the sensationalized style of journalism that was popular in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is most frequently associated with William Randolph Hearst, the owner of the New York Journal; Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of the New York World; and the Spanish–American War of 1898 when, for the first time in history, the journalistic presence preceded the military presence in a war. Stories were written that freely mixed fact and fiction, and accompanying photographs and illustrations made stories simultaneously more believable and more horrific. After the war, the focus of yellow journalism turned to murder, scandal, sex, and celebrities.

Scholars do not agree on the origin of the term yellow journalism. Some sources suggest that the term was coined after the New York World published the first colored supplement in 1893, but others insist it was derived from a popular cartoon of the period. Hogan’s Alley was the brainchild of R. F. Outcault who used the cartoon to tell the story of a group of children living in a New York tenement. The ringleader and the most popular figure was the impudent, T-shirted Yellow Kid. A rivalry developed between Joseph Pulitzer (1847–1911), owner of the New York World, and William Randolph Hearst (1863–1951), owner of the New York Journal, when Outcault left the New York World for the New York Journal, taking the Yellow Kid and his cohorts with him. Pulitzer responded by hiring George Luks to develop an alternate Yellow Kid character. An editorial cartoon of the era by Leon Barrett depicts Hearst and Pulitzer, both dressed as the Yellow Kid, fighting it out to prove who owned the Spanish–American War. Other journalists launched a campaign to have both newspapers banned from libraries, reading rooms, social organizations, and clubs.

Regardless of its source, yellow journalism is associated with sensationalism, hyperbole, excessive negativity, extravagant competitiveness, multicolumn headlines, colored illustrations, bold layouts, the use of anonymous sources, indifference to accuracy, and unabashed self-promotion. Despite the derogatory associations of the term yellow journalism, reputable writers such as Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, and Ambrose Bierce honed their skills through their early connections with the genre. The typical yellow journalist has been described as the agnostic son of a Protestant minister, a believer in science rather than religion, impetuous, daring, resourceful, and willing to go undercover when necessary and to make news when none existed.

Even before the days of yellow journalism, some newspapers had deliberately misled readers. During the revolutionary period, early American journalists sometimes exaggerated British misdeeds in order to inflame Americans and push them toward independence. One noted instance of this practice occurred when Benjamin Harris published such a story in his Publik Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic on September 25, 1690. Harris was shut down by the British after publishing his first edition. Before this time, the British had owned all newspapers printed in the colonies. The first regularly published newspaper, the Boston Newsletter, was introduced by John Campbell in April 1704. The first independent newspaper was the New England Courant, which began operation in 1721. Most newspapers published before the nineteenth century were, however, affiliated with political parties and politicians, and newspapers existed chiefly to serve the interests of governments.

The industry was transformed over the course of the nineteenth century with the invention of the telegraph and the capability of instant communication between journalists in the field and editors and publishers at headquarters. Invented in 1832 by Samuel F. B. Morse, the telegraph had still been in its infancy during the Civil War, when it had mostly been used to transmit military intelligence, announce victories, and relay lists of the dead. Thomas Edison was reportedly the first individual astute enough to recognize the journalistic possibilities of the telegraph when he wired news of the Confederate retreat from the Battle of Shiloh, which was fought in southwestern Tennessee April 6–7, 1882. Many scholars agreed that the Spanish–American War might never have occurred without the telegraph.

An industry legend, which most experts later considered apocryphal, concerns Hearst dispatching his star reporter, Richard Harding Davis, and illustrator Frederick Remington to Cuba as the situation heated up there in early 1898. After days of inactivity and boredom, Remington allegedly wired Hearst asking to come home, but Hearst responded by wiring back, “Please remain. You furnish pictures, and I’ll furnish the war!” The anecdote is considered to epitomize the sensational aspect of yellow journalism, which allowed newspapers to manufacture their own news when none was available and to focus on war, spectacles, and violence.

Both Hearst and Pulitzer spent enormous sums covering a war that was over within months. It has been estimated that Hearst spent around $50,000 a week, amounting to around $1 million in 2016 dollars (Carey, 2016), paying 80 cents a word for telegrams and $1,500 day for chartered boats. The rest went for paying salaries of correspondents and other staff and for cameras, signal balloons, and carrier pigeons. Hearst also sailed to Cuba in a steamer charted from the Baltimore Fruit Company that had been fitted out with its own printing press and darkroom. At 9:40 PM on the night of February 15, 1898, the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, and 260 of the 400 crew members were killed. Correspondent Sylvester Scovel of the New York World telegraphed the news almost immediately via a dedicated wire located in the paper’s New York headquarters. F. J. Hilbert of Associated Press wired the news out at 1:20 a.m. At the World, the morning headlines read, “Maine Explosion Caused by Bomb or Torpedo.” An illustration of the ship exploding amid flying debris and body parts provided an even more sensational element. It was later revealed the explosion had been caused by an internal coal combustion in the A16 bunker.

Further Insights

On August 12, 1898, the Spanish–American War was declared officially over, and Cuba became an independent nation. Yellow journalists shifted their attention to other forms of sensationalism. Although the field was heavily dominated by males, women were beginning to prove that they could be journalists. Many practiced what became known as “stunt journalism,” and one of the best-known practitioners of stunt journalism was Elizabeth Cochrane (1864–1922), better known as Nellie Bly, who worked for the New York World. Bly established her reputation by going undercover at an infamous insane asylum for women on Blackwell's Island, presenting her findings in the six-part story “Ten Days in a Madhouse.” During her thirty-seven-year career, Bly became known as a pioneer in the field of investigative journalism. She was also a proficient interviewer, conducting interviews with women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony, anarchist Emma Goldman, socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs, and world heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. In 1889, Bly became an international figure when she traveled around the world in seventy-two days for the New York World, besting the fictional Phileas Fogg of Jules Verne’s popular 1873 novel Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours (Around the World in 80 Days, 1873).

The field of photojournalism developed in conjunction with the Spanish–American War and yellow journalism, opening new avenues for telling stories. The advertising industry also took full advantage of the war, using heroic images to sell their products. Pears’ Soap, for instance, enlisted Admiral George Dewey, the hero of the Battle of Manila Bay, to sell its soap. An ad that appeared in Harper’s Weekly on September 30, 1899, emphasized the stereotypical notion of Spanish opponents as barbaric. The ad read, “The first step toward lifting the White Man’s Burden is through realizing the virtue of clean lives.”

Hoax journalism surfaced in the nineteenth century in what came to be known as the “penny press.” One of the earliest cases of hoax journalism occurred when a New York newspaper, The Sun, ran a series of six articles in August 1835 that purported to have been an announcement that Sir John Herschel, a leading scientist of the day, had invented an extremely powerful telescope that had led to the discovery of a new civilization living on the moon. The series described animals that appeared to—and most likely had—come straight out of a children’s book, such as unicorns and tailless beavers that walked on two feet. Details of the land’s oceans, beaches, and trees were included to provide it with a more realistic tone.

The Sun, which had published its first edition on September 3, 1833, was known for its sensationalized reporting. On January 19, 1898, the Boston Post published a story describing a Martian invasion of the city, reporting that in December the USS Katahdin had mysteriously appeared in Boston Harbor. The story was actually a reprint of H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds in which the newspaper had, without Wells’s permission, partially rewritten the story, changing its setting. The original story had already appeared in Cosmopolitanin New York and in Pearson’s Magazine in England, and another altered version had been serialized in the New York Evening Journal owned by Hearst in 1897. The infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast that caused panic among listeners who thought a Martian attack was in progress did not air until October 30, 1938, as part of the Columbia Broadcasting System’s Halloween programming.

Discourse

Scholars have identified a second wave of sensationalist journalism that occurred in the years after World War I when, for the first time, newspapers began to be published in what became known as the tabloid or broadsheet format that was typically 22 inches in length. Photographs were considered an essential element. “Jazz journalism” first appeared in the 1920s and was modeled after the British style introduced by Alfred C. Harmsworth, who steered the Daily Mirror from being a woman’s newspaper to becoming a half-penny illustrated newspaper selling a million copies a day. In 1919, an American version, the New York Illustrated Daily News, was introduced. The illustrations made this newspaper particularly popular with immigrants still unfamiliar with the English language.

Hearst had established Hearst Communications in 1887, and his newspaper empire was thriving. Pulitzer had died in 1911, so that competition had been relegated to newspaper history. In 1921, Hearst’s Evening Journal was the top-selling newspaper in New York, and the New York Illustrated Daily News was second. That same year, Bernarr Macfadden began publishing The Daily Graphic, introducing the concept of “gutter journalism" that depended on images such as nude girls dancing in champagne-filled bathtubs, a real-estate mogul cavorting with his fifteen-year-old bride, and a murderer poised for execution to sell newspapers. Tabloids practicing gutter journalism flourished in the period between 1926 and 1928.

As the twentieth century progressed, reaction to decades of journalistic practices that had provided a fertile environment for the rise of yellow journalism and other even less reputable forms of journalism led to a new emphasis on professionalism that promoted the presentation of stories that were factual, ethical, and fair. After World War II, professionalism increased as schools of journalism were created to train students how to become journalists. College-educated journalists came to be the order of the day, replacing the stereotypical reporter typically portrayed in books and on film as rough and tough heavy drinkers who had received only on-the-job training and mentoring.

Somewhat ironically, Pulitzer played a major role in the professionalization of journalism. In his will, he provided funding for the founding of the Columbia School of Journalism and endowed the Pulitzer Prizes that annually recognize excellence in journalism. Pulitzer had earned a reputation as a social activist, and he had been instrumental in the campaign to keep the Statue of Liberty in New York. Hearst had turned his focus to stories of political corruption, sexual deviance, and criminal activities, founding the Murder Squad, a team of investigative reporters assigned to solve crimes before the police could do so.

While contemporary tabloids seem to have much in common with yellow journalism, most people are able to recognize them as attempts to entertain through exploitation and lies. Many twenty-first century observers have argued that the true challenge to journalistic integrity lies with the popularity of fake news, which has shown a striking similarity to yellow journalism. The case of Macedonian teens being paid by the number of times Americans click on false news stories planted by the teens was well documented. Allison Burns (2018) identified seven types of “fake news” that had become common in the early twenty-first century: satire and parody that are intended for entertainment rather than harm but which may still mislead the unwary; false connections that incorrectly or maliciously link unrelated information or stories; misleading content that is provided solely for the purpose of providing incorrect or “alternate” information; false content that intentionally disregards the truth; imposter content that appears to be one thing but is actually something else, such as quoting a nonexistent source; manipulated content that intentionally misrepresents, such as when a person is photoshopped into an image; and fabricated content that is totally made up for purposes of deceiving and harming others.

Despite widespread awareness that fake news exists, studies have shown that many people are regularly fooled by such stories. People are more likely to believe fake news stories that support views they already hold, and fake news often contains an element of truth. The tendency to accept partisan fake news has been shown to have been exploited by Russians who interfered in the 2016 presidential election. Experts recommended that in order to avoid being fooled by fake news, individuals should consider and investigate sources; determine the legitimacy of author(s); check dates to ensure relevance; consider whether personal beliefs are affecting the tendency to trust unreliable sources; read other articles on the issue; look for supporting information; and turn to fact-checking sites, libraries, and experts in fields.

Terms & Concepts

Hoax Journalism: The term refers to the journalistic practice in which stories were written to appear true although they were fictional or based on distortions of real events. Examples include fictional Martian attacks purporting to be real and reporting of false discoveries of places that do not exist.

Gutter Journalism: A lurid and sensationalized style of journalism that existed only to sell newspapers and cater to scandalous tastes. Gutter journalism tended to focus on the private lives of celebrities and other public figures.

Investigative Journalism: The field of journalism devoted to uncovering secrets, scandals, and illegal practices, often requiring journalists to work undercover or behind the scenes. Investigative journalists tend to focus on one issue at a time such as with Nellie Bly’s work on uncovering the abuses on Blackwell's Island.

Jazz Journalism: Term used to describe the journalistic style that was popular in the United States between 1919 and 1924 that focused on stories about celebrities, sex, money, and violence. Stories were made more appealing by the inclusion of numerous photographs that gave readers the impression of being on hand to witness events related within the stories.

Penny Press: The term refers to the tabloid-style newspapers that sold for one cent each to make them widely available to the reading public. First appearing in the 1830s, the focus was on entertainment rather than on substantive news reporting.

Pulitzer Prize: When Joseph Pulitzer died in 1911, he endowed four annual Pulitzer Prizes to recognize journalist excellence upon the recommendation of the faculty of the Columbia School of Journalism, which he also endowed. The awards recognized disinterested and meritorious public service by a newspaper, best editorial, best reporting, and the accomplishment of a publicly recognized public good. Other awards recognized excellence in arts and letters, drama, and education and funded traveling expenses for specific endeavors.

Stunt Reporting: The term refers to an early form of immersion reporting in which reporters accepted daring and often dangerous assignments in order to report on controversial issues such as abortion or to uncover abusive practices in institutions. Early stunt reporters were predominately female.

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