Yellow Journalism in the 20th Century: Hearst’s and Pulitzer’s Articles on the Sinking of the U.S.S. Maine

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Yellow journalism is a type of journalism that focuses on writing pretty much anything in an effort to make big sales instead of writing from an impartial standpoint. It wasn’t until the final days leading up to the Spanish-American War that yellow journalism reared its ugly head. The idea of yellow journalism started with a comic strip printed by Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, in which there was a little yellow man nicknamed “The Yellow Boy”. William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Journal, hired out the cartoonist who designed the “Yellow Boy” comic strip, thus causing hostility between the two owners and their newspapers. They were always at competition with each other when it came to selling big headlines. Their headlines would always contain human interest columns, dramatic crime stories and a heavy dose of cartoons that would make the paper sell well, not to mention the decrease of the price of a paper to one cent. In 1895, a revolt broke out in Cuba against the Spanish government, with America coming in to help Cuba soon after. During the war, America built the U.S.S. Maine, a ninety-nine meter battleship that had been built and sent to Cuban waters to match the growing Brazilian navy as well as to protect American assets. The two men saw this war in Cuba as an opportunity to write emotionally stirring stories. They both wrote horrific tales concerning the condition of the people in Cuba. Suddenly, on February 15, 1898, the Maine suddenly exploded, killing two hundred sixty one sailors and wounding nineteen others. Both Hearst and Pulitzer, among other newspapers, saw this catastrophic event as a chance to make it big in the media world. Without any concrete evidence, they wrote up headlines declaring that Spain ...

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...hos (Ceremonial), and ethos (Political). Forensic rhetoric deals with wrongdoing and its motives; pathos deals with the forms of virtue, as well as praising one thing over another; ethos has to do with the knowledge of what is good, as well as dealing with the four main types of government. When Hearst and Pulitzer wrote their dramatic news articles were filled with logos, or forensic rhetoric. They looked at the situation, saw the possibility that the Spanish could have sunken the ship, and went after that theory. They identified the perpetrators, the Spanish, and the victims, the men aboard the U.S.S. Maine and all America. They made their accusation and declared that they had been wronged. While other newspapers used forensic rhetoric in an impartial manner, Hearst and Randolph used forensic rhetoric in the manner of yellow journalism. And look how it turned out.

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