Yellow Journalism and WW1 - Free Essay Example

Yellow Journalism was one of many factors that helped push Spain and the United States into war in Cuba. Yellow journalism is journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration. Yellow Journalism has been going on for more than a century it initially started in 1898 when the New York press covered the sinking off the U.S.S. Maine in the port of Havana. As time passed history was being made by an unscrupulous press, driven to sensationalize stories and fabricate facts in a vest for eyeballs and dollars. Later, critics of yellow journalism saw its sensationalism and dishonesty as a business strategy. Yellow journalism has been a dominant way to make easy money now and will continue throughout time. When yellow journalism was first starting out in 1898 there were these two men named William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer and to capture readers interests and to increase circulation rates, the papers would create bold headlines, and misleading or exaggerated new stories. These two men battled for years to become the most circulated paper but in the end neither ended up winning. There are many characteristics of yellow journalism some include Scare Headlines, Fake photos, Faked interviews or stories, Sunday color comics. Scare headlines are headlines that are used to scare the reader usually against someone elses campaign, Fake photos are more used in recent years with the rise of photoshop to make a photo seem like that actually happened just for a good story, Faked interviews or stories are completely made up answers or stories to help benefit the people who are selling the news, Lastly Sunday color comics which also includes ads. These ads include big bold lettering to gain your attention and pictures and ratings that are not real or correct. The biggest use of these characteristics were in the Spanish American War (1898) The rise of yellow journalism helped to create a climate conducive to the outbreak of international conflict and the expansion of U.S influence overseas.This shows how the U.S. was helped pushed by yellow journalism to declare war with Spain in Cuba and the Philippines. World War 1 was very important for yellow journalism, this is about the time where propaganda came major into play. The most effective way to use propaganda was by using posters because radios and television were not big yet and the posters message was that failure to enlist was akin to treason. WW1 propaganda was a large factor in recruiting and started to introduce itself in to popular music and many entertainment. The poster that was most famous in WW1 was American painter James Montgomery Flaggs I want you, it shows Uncle Sam pointing a finger right at the audience.