Yellow Journalism essays

War of Deception/ Yellow Journalism essays Newspapers are a major influence on the way people perceive the world. It is a source which connects readers to many different topics of interest. Newspapers have also become a competitive business. With a desire to increase circulation and obtain more advertising revenue, a different type of journalism was developed in the late 1900s. The press industry began to evolve into a media that had not been seen before. Critics were labeling this new style of publishing all types names such as jingoism, sensationalism, and as it is wildly known today, yellow journalism. Many battles between publishers to get the first scope of a story created a market that would become almost fictional and have serious consequences on the stability of society. The first most notable incident was the Spanish-American War, known as the Newspaper War. With the use of sensationalism and yellow journalism the newspaper industry exploited the American population and government to instigate a declaration of war on Spain. In the mid-1890s, Joseph Pulitzer (New York World) and William Hearst (San Francisco Examiner) transformed newspapers with sensational and scandalous news coverage. This turned the high drama of life into a cheap melodrama and led to stories being twisted into the forms best suited for sales by the hollering newsboy at the corner of every New York intersection. The main event in the press was the growing controversy in Cuba. Cuba and Puerto Rico were the only remnants of Spain's once vast empire in the New World (Brenan 211). The Spanish government was using unconventional and sometimes brutal methods to control the uprising in Cuba. Stories about the Cuban rebellion sold papers, and continued to appear. Every little bit of Cuban turmoil drew public attention. Newspapers started reporting atrocities and many mass executions of prisoners and sympathizers in detention camps. Although some of the reported e...