bikelifer t1_jcsqerp wrote on March 19, 2023 at 7:27 AM

Remember learning about yellow journalism and how it almost/ ? actually? Started a war. Anyone interested in the topic able to explain/ give synopsis?

Purple-Missile6907 t1_jcswihe wrote on March 19, 2023 at 8:55 AM

Sure. William Randolph Hearst and the New York Journal said that the USS Maine was blown up by Spain, based off of false rumor. This made US citizens mad, and drove public support for a war against Spain. So-lies made by the media helped fuel a national desire for war.

quantdave t1_jct9yac wrote on March 19, 2023 at 11:58 AM

... and four months earlier came the Journal's part in breaking Evangelina Cisneros out of jail as the innocent victim of a Spanish officer's advances. Her account broadly supports the paper's case (though not necessarily the more lurid accounts) , but Hearst would doubtless have been mortified by her Havana military funeral 72 years later as a heroine of the independence struggle.

Purple-Missile6907 t1_jcswl2e wrote on March 19, 2023 at 8:56 AM

You also have a more realistic side of it. Journalists taking photos of what was going on in Cuba drove up support in the US against Spain. So-coverage of abuse made Spain look bad, built empathy for the Cuban rebels.

SasquatchMcKraken t1_jcvkoo6 wrote on March 19, 2023 at 10:00 PM

I don't think it was as important as some make it out to be. There were genuine reports of Spanish war crimes in Cuba, aided by a long-standing dislike of Spain ( the not entirely unfounded "Black Legend"). Plus we'd had our eyes on Cuba since the antebellum era. The yellow press just fanned existing prejudices and sentiments. It amplified pre-existing thoughts and was more or less with (rather than leading) the times.

elmonoenano t1_jcvlekm wrote on March 19, 2023 at 10:05 PM

There's a book called War Lovers about how politicians like Teddy Roosevelt and Hearst worked together to drum up support for an expeditionary war against Spain.

There was also a book a few years ago called Confronting Imperialism that was a collection of essays on The Anti-Imperial League which opposed Hearst and Roosevelt's march to war. The members of the group included notable folks like Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie (this is was one of the key events that pushed him to create the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and Helen Keller.