Explore examples of yellow journalism during the Spanish-American War, including the sinking of the USS Maine, the De Lôme letter, and the Battle of Manila Bay.
Yellow Journalism Spanish American War Examples
The Spanish-American War was the first military conflict in which the media took part in a decisive, vital way, and even played an intermediary role never seen or considered, as they precipitated an unprecedented military action.
During the so-called Spanish-American War , and in that history of the dirtiest propaganda of the press, Cubans were involuntary protagonists of yellow sensationalism ; as we would later be when Herbert Matthews , special envoy to The New York Times , decided, along with the United States government, that Fidel Castro would be the tyrant of Cuba. Much later, we would suffer these tricks from the yellow press again when the unfortunate case of the child Elián González occurred , in which his mother Elizabeth Brotons lost her life .
But, the premiere of what we are seeing today, even on a global level, and that occurs in that country that supposedly has the greatest freedom of expression and of the press, with the press itself and in relation to the president elected in 2016 and candidate to re-election in 2020, Donald Trump, took place during the aforementioned war and broadly defined its losers: Spain and Cuba.
Time and history have sweetened the episode, but the passage is still shameful. The Spanish-American War between April and August 1898 began an extremely acute point in the history of propaganda, and the phenomenon is studied as the beginning of a practice of yellow journalism , disloyal, and biased, to call it in good manners.
Here are Yellow Journalism Spanish American War Examples
The case of the Hungarian Joseph Pulitzer, who initially gave prestige to the “serious” press in those years of emergency and need for digestible truths, was not without controversy either. Sensational and lurid, his publications led to what is now called the “yellow press” and its journalistic practices were more than questionable. In short: he patented ‘fake news’.
- The De Lôme Letter (1898):
- Spanish Ambassador to the United States, Enrique Dupuy de Lôme, wrote a private letter criticizing President McKinley. This letter was stolen and published by William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal, which exaggerated its contents to portray McKinley in a negative light, stoking anti-Spanish sentiment.
- USS Maine Explosion (1898):
- The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor was heavily sensationalized by newspapers like Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. Although the cause of the explosion was never definitively proven, yellow journalism blamed Spain without concrete evidence, further fueling calls for war.
- Cartoons and Illustrations:
- Both newspapers used provocative cartoons and illustrations to depict Spain as a brutal oppressor of Cuba and the Philippines, portraying exaggerated scenes of Spanish atrocities to invoke sympathy for the Cuban and Filipino independence movements.
- Headlines and Stories:
- Headlines often exaggerated events to attract readership. For instance, stories about Spanish brutality in Cuba were sensationalized to evoke outrage and support for U.S. intervention.
One of the most iconic moments of the Spanish-American War, the charge of the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill, was also heavily romanticized by yellow journalism outlets. Newspapers like the New York Journal and the New York World portrayed Teddy Roosevelt and his band of volunteers as fearless warriors charging into battle against overwhelming odds. This sensationalized coverage helped cement Roosevelt’s image as a rugged hero and boosted his political career.
The origin of the expression ” The yellow press ” is related to a comic strip character called “The Yellow Kid” who wore a yellow tunic and who unleashed a war between two newspapers.
How did the expression “The yellow press” come about?
As indicated by the Argentine journalist Daniel Balmaceda in “Stories of letters, words and phrases” (2014), at the end of the 19th century , at a time when the war was fought between the United States and Spain due to their desire to expand in lands. South Americans, a battle raged between the newspapers “New York Journal”, by William Randolph Hearst, and “New York World”, by Joseph Pulitzer.
New York Journal vs New York World
The objective of both journalistic businessmen was to liquidate the other. To carry out this task, they reduced the price of the copy, exaggerated the news and put shocking titles on the covers, written in large black characters . But the greatest power dispute between the two magnates occurred during the Spanish-American War.
At that time, comics artist Richard Outcault published a strip called “The Yellow Kid” in Pulitzer’s diary. This comic included a character who was a boy in a yellow nightgown walking through the streets. The baby’s nightgown-pajamas had comical inscriptions, which generated immediate success . What was new about the drawing, furthermore, was that its creator had been a pioneer in placing a balloon to frame the dialogue in a comic strip.
The battle for “The Yellow Kid”
The popularity of “The Yellow Kid” irritated Hearst, so during the Spanish-American War he hired the cartoonist Outcault and managed to get the comic strip into his newspaper. Pulitzer, for his part, hired a new illustrator to continue the saga . In this way, the two most sensationalist dailies in New York competed with the same comic strip for a time. Soon the editor Erwin Wardman of the newspaper “New York Press” coined the name to define his two sensationalist competitors: inspired by “The Yellow Kid”, he called them “the yellow press” .
Language is a conventional system of signs used by societies to establish communication and, as such, it is constantly changing . In this sense, the most popularly known phrases originated a long time ago, in contexts very different from those of today. Such is the case of the expression “The yellow press” .
Current meaning of the phrase “The yellow press”
Nowadays the expression “Yellow Press” or “Yellow Press” is used without thinking about the context that gave it origin. By extension, it is a type of journalism that presents news with striking, scandalous or exaggerated headlines in order to increase sales , even though the information does not have any evidence or reliable research to support the data.