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| Joseph Pulitzer |
Joseph Pulitzer, born in Hungary in 1847 as József Politzer, emigrated to the United States in 1864 and enlisted in the New York cavalry to help Union during the Civil War. After the war while still a teen, Mr. Pulitzer drifted west and wrote for a German newspaper in St. Louis. By working diligently he was able to buy the St Louis. Post, a bankrupt newspaper company and then buy a second called the St. Louis Dispatch, finally merging the two into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. In 1878 Pulitzer pioneered a new style of reporting that focused on American humanity. In his opinion, newspaper should be cheap, written clearly, and actively peruse the community's interest. He vowed that "accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a woman." In a short period of time Pulitzer led reform initiates by exposing fraud at polls, getting rid of city brothels, and putting an end to high profits and poor service by gas monopolies. As a result Pulitzer created financial success as Streitmatter staits, "a once-penniless immigrant annual income to $200,000. In 1883 he entered the biggest journalism market in the country by aiming his New York World at the new urban laboring class. Because of his large new audience his paper's circulation soared from 15,000 when he started to 250,000 several years later. He was also responsible for expanding the journalistic technique by introducing women's pages with articles on social etiquette, home decorating, and romantic advice aimed at female readers.
II. William Randolph Hearst Stupifies the World
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| William Randolph Hearst |
Born in 1863 in California, William Randolph Hearst began life opposite to that of Joseph Pulitzer. William was born into a struck rich family enabling him to attend Harvard. Young Hearst Idolized Pulitzer and persuaded his father to let him edit the San Francisco Time, a financially failing newspaper. With his family's wealth he was able to afford to hire the best staff, enabling him to undertake ambitious campaigns such as lowing city water rates and putting an end to the Southern Pacific Railroads dominance of the Republican Party in California. Streitmatter staits" Hearst Hammered injustice, highlighting murder and scandal, while pushing sports and theater news to page one; hiring reporters exclusively to cover society and financial news." After eight years William Hearst dramatically increased his circulation from 12,000 to 200,000.
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| Yellow Kid Journalism |
At the age of thirty two, Hearst realized his life dream of needing to compete against his lifelong inspiration Joseph Pulitzer, dropping the price of a paper from $.02 to $.01 and introducing color printing in order to lure advertisers away from the World. The term Yellow Journalism came to be as a casualty of war between the two media Titans of the era. Pulitzer was responsible for creating a cartoon featuring a "grinning, snaggle-toothed boy who wore a bright yellow nightshirt that earned him the name Yellow Kid. Eventually both newspapers had hired artists to plaster billboards with posters featuring the character. The yellow boy mascot came to represent the sensationalistic journalism that defined the era. By 1897 Hearst had pushed the Journal's circulation to 500,000 just short of Worlds' 600,000. In the attempt to our story the other the two papers began to focus on events which ultimately pushed the nation into international war.
IV. The Battleground Shifts to Cuba
By 1895 Cuban rebels had become extremely tired of Spanish colonial status and began to strike out by wrecking trains and burning sugar plants down. Despite the U.S. State Department regarding the insurgents as insignificant Hearst appointed the men as "courageous freedom fighters struggling against Spanish oppression. Pulitzer initially apposed involvement in Cuba but later admitted that the sole motivation for his change of heart had been the opportunity to increase newspaper circulation. Despite the coverage there was actually little to nothing occurring in Cuba. According to a reply sent to Hearst from an employee covering in Cuba, "Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here, there will be no war. I wish to return." Disappointed by the enlightenment Hearst still needed stories in order to compete against the World so he stretched stories out to be what they weren’t. In response the World tracked down the same story, later posting the true events. Helping the rebellion gain momentum, both newspapers published accounts of battles that never took place in order to sensationalize the news. The accounts focused so much public attention that the U.S Congress knew it would win Washington’s support.
William Hearst
V. "Remember the Maine!"
VI. Overpowering the PresidentWilliam Hearst
V. "Remember the Maine!"
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| Artist's Rendition of U.S.S Maine explosion |
News coverage of Cuba was at its pinnacle from 1895 to 1898. American officials had anchored U.S.S Maine, a battleship, in Havana Harbor in order to acknowledge the United States presence on the situation. Although the cause of the explosion was never determined, on February 15, 1898, the ship exploded killing 260 sailors. Even though Spain desparately tried avoided bringing the United States into their Conflict with Cuba, both Hearst and Pulitzer exploited the situation in order to create warmongering coverage. "Screaming headlines, misleading drawings, and shrill editorials lamed the Spanish government and demanded that the United States immediately declare war," (Streightmatter).
Both newspapers ridiculed President McKinley saying that his peace stance was cowardly and influenced by Wall Street financiers who thought the war would hurt the economy. Both Newspapers continued to instigate writing: "The army is ready, the navy is ready. The people are ready. And now the president says wait!... Wait for what?" When McKinley in turn called for continued deliberate consideration Hearst and Pulitzer turned up the heat by interviewing relatives and friends of the dead sailors while referencing how he would have felt had McKinley lost his boy in that explosion. Ultimately McKinley caved in due to the eagerness that the fourth estate exerted on the president and the people.
VII. On the Battlefront
After the war was declared both the Journal's and World continued to maintain hysteria. With material running low and competition between the two high as ever both began posting stories on one another regarding information stings catching each other in acts of falsifying news. At the end of the war, Spain granted Cuba its independence with the newspapers circulation reaching 1.25million each.
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