Category: Yellow Press

• The "Yellow Journalism" War

  This theory held that William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer did not merely exploit the Spanish-American War in their papers but effectively manufactured or “invented” the war in order to sell newspapers. It grew out of the very real circulation war between the New York Journal and the New York World, both of which sensationalized events in Cuba and competed aggressively for public attention. Later retellings compressed this complicated media and policy environment into a single accusation: the war happened because newspapers wanted it to happen.