Yellow Journalism, Sensationalism, and Media Tycoons

While “fake news” has become a concern in recent years, America has seen its periods of untrustworthiness in media before. In this episode, Mary, Gary, and Eryn explore the agendas of media tycoons like Pulitzer and Hearst during the age of “yellow journalism.” Did these big players overstep their boundaries by reporting rumors over facts to drive sales? How should we as a culture balance the rights of the First Amendment while also being truthful, responsible agents?

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Transcript

Intro/Outro (00:06)
From the Bill of Rights Institute, Fabric of History weaves together US history founding principles and what all of this means to us today. Join us as we pull back the curtains of the past to see what's inside.

Haley (00:20)
While fake news has become a concern in recent years, America has seen its periods of untrustworthiness in the media before. In this episode of Fabric of History, Mary, Gary, and Eryn explore the agendas of media tycoons like Pulitzer and Hearst during the age of yellow journalism. Did these big players overstep their boundaries by reporting rumors over facts to drive sales? How should we as a culture, balance the rights of the First Amendment while also being truthful, responsible agents?

Mary (00:54)
Hi, everybody. This is Mary. Eryn. Gary. Listeners, I wanted to share with you a quote that I recently came across that I think is pretty amazing. If you'll indulge me, it goes like this. To grasp the modern, you got to live in history a little. And I love this quote because, one, Gary said it two days ago and probably didn't know that I was writing it down. But two, it's applicable to so many things. And I think it's especially relevant to a conversation that Americans are having really nationally right now, which is what does responsible journalism look like, don't you think?

Eryn (01:43)
Absolutely.

Gary (01:45)
I was going to ask where that quote came from because I thought that's very good. I genuinely didn't know that. But I agree that is really important. And can I zoom in on a little bit? You said responsible journalism. So journalism has a purpose, but you use the term responsible journalism, which sounds like there's irresponsible, like a non-example. So without tossing out the entirety of journalism, like, with the assumption that there's some purpose because we've had it forever, is there a time or a nonexample of what you mean by perhaps irresponsible journalism?

Mary (02:27)
Absolutely. I think the term yellow journalism and this media war between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst comes to mind with this idea of fake news and just saying things that aren't true or sensationalizing things, I think it's very much an example of irresponsible journalism. And the more you dive into this topic, the more parallels I see with the present day because again, this term fake news, and who's telling you what are they leaving out? Can we trust this source? We have to be critical consumers of information. Like all of these big ideas that are so important to being an informed citizen, they're not new. And I think looking at that example of yellow journalism in the late 19th century, and these two guys in particular, Pulitzer and Hearst, really sheds light on the importance of journalism in our society. It's enshrined in our First Amendment. It's a big deal to have a free press. So how do you go about that responsibly on the media side? And then as a consumer, as a citizen, someone who's reading the news or listening to news. How do you know what's what? I think these are timeless questions.

Mary (03:50)
If we go back and look at the story of yellow journalism and how it came to be and the legacies for today.

Gary (03:57)
I think it's a great idea. Again, that's a fun podcast. Let's go back in time a little bit and kind of see what we mean.

Mary (04:03)
Let's take a quick break and then we're going on a field trip to the 1890s. Buckle up, everybody.

Gary (04:20)
All right. We're back from our first break, and we are going back in time a bit. So journalism has existed long before the 1800s in the United States, right? I mean, people like to have news. People like to know what's going on, have opinions, lots of different things to communicate. That's great. Can you tell us more? Maybe, or could we discuss a little more the context of a specific time period, the phrase of yellow journalism. And this idea really emerges at a very specific time and place. What's going on with that?

Mary (04:55)
Sure. So yellow journalism, I guess just what is it? It's just journalism that it's more sensational over facts. So it's like taking an activist role in news reporting. And that is usually associated with the 1890s, in particular, Joseph Pulitzer's World and William Randolph Hearst's Journal. And both of these publications are in New York City and the 1890s. So New York City, the 1890s. We're in the Gilded Age. This is a huge period of growth and change, industrialization, technological change, lots of immigrants. And there's this mass consumption. There's more of a consumer society. And Joseph Pulitzer, he's really a trailblazer in how he presents news because like you said, newspapers aren't anything new. We've had newspapers going back to before we were even officially a country. But what Pulitzer does is he almost sort of marries the elite idea of getting political news or economic news with this idea of a Penny press or appealing to common people. So reporting on sports, on fashion, having advertisements in his publication in the World. And he also really understands how to present it. So the type, the colors, the layout, and that was really groundbreaking, like having comics in the newspaper.

Mary (06:30)
So like just stopping myself there, nothing about that really sounds untoward. That kind of sounds like a newspaper today. When I was little and we got the paper, I just took out the comics when I was a little kid. But what happens is a gentleman named William Randolph Hearst acquires The Journal, another publication, and they start competing in this circulation war. And in doing that, they end up kind of trying to outdo each other and go over the top with sensational headlines and exposes. And it gets to the point where they're not so much reporting on news, but they're making up news. And that is called this yellow journalism. That's where the term is describing that sort of fight between the two and their two publications.

Gary (07:23)
So it's sort of the competition then. I mean, it sounds like the goal is to inform and engage with as many people as possible. And by that, I mean, if it could be colorful or if it could just have really interesting look. So it's not only that the content is getting to people, but also you get to people because it looks good and you can afford it and you make it frequently enough. You just make decisions. It sounds like, but it sounds like then with competition happening, it turns into something of not only am I trying not only as a newspaper trying to reach as many people as possible, it's also more than the other people who are putting out their newspapers and reaching people. That sounds like a pretty clear reason for change. The goal is now to inform as many people as possible, sell as much as possible, and make decisions to serve that. Is that what that sounds like?

Mary (08:10)
I think that's fair. It's really the competition between the two that sort of takes the Sensationals into the next level. And even the term yellow journalism, it comes from a character that appeared in a comic in Pulitzer's World first, it was called the Yellow Kid, and it was a point of pride for Pulitzer because people would say, did you see what the yellow Kid had to say today in this comic? And then Hearst actually buys the artist over to his camp along with a lot of his other reporters and things like that. So you have the yellow kid appearing in both papers, and that's where the term comes from. And they're really just trying to outdo each other. It's this epic circulation battle that leads to headlines that are flat out made up, especially, and then we have the Spanish American War, and that's when it just goes to the next level where these two guys are publishing like five to seven times a day just trying to outdo each other. It's almost like if you think about news today, you can refresh the page and you're getting new headlines hours later. But it's almost like what was happening then.

Mary (09:23)
But there's no Internet, spoiler, in the 1898, but they're publishing so frequently just to get more and more people to buy their papers.

Eryn (09:33)
They're publishing so frequently and for so cheap. I think what was it, her store poles or one of the two literally went down to a Penny. So when they say Penny press, they were actually charging a Penny and they were producing all this content more and more, but losing the most money they've ever lost. So I think it's very interesting that they were having this competition between their newspapers, but at a loss for both of them. You increased readership, but you're like more and more in the red.

Mary (10:06)
Yeah, it's very ironic, right? They're doing the circulation battle but they're going into the red

Gary (10:12)
And the specific time and place you mentioned, it seems really important. Right. It's a time where presses can be producing large amounts of newspapers frequently over the course of the day, and then also when it comes to physical newspapers like you said, it's not the Internet, it's distribution. Right. It's able to get into the hands of people a couple of times a day. And so it's interesting that there's definitely the economic approach, but there's also the relevancy of your brand. It sounds like that you want to get into the hands of people who are perhaps having these conversations over the course of the day, and you just have to wait a few more hours and an update might happen or a new story may happen. And there's an interesting intensity in an urban situation like New York City in the 1890s that has a technology of the time that can serve the public. But then it sounds like there's a need to still, it's not meeting a demand where it is. It sounds like it's actually driving demand by having sensational stories. And then you mentioned a change with the Spanish American War.

Mary (11:17)
The Spanish American War is, I think, the turning point. And when we can really start saying this is a period of fake news, because what both Hearst and Pulitzer are doing is they are fabricating headlines to sell papers, and in so doing that, they are influencing public reaction, and that reaction is going to start clamoring for war with Spain over Cuba. And it's almost like to say it's an interesting question. If Americans weren't aware of the situation in Cuba, would they have called for US intervention? I don't know. But they're getting these papers with these headlines that are making Cuban revolutionaries into this. It's a melodrama. They're like Thomas Jefferson and Paul Revere, and we have to help them. How true. That's a great story about how true is it? But that's what a lot of people were seeing. And so there's a lot of public demand for the United States to intercede.

Eryn (12:28)
Especially after the sinking of a US battleship, the main in Havana, Cuba. Then Pulitzer and Hearst come in and try and Stoke these, like, anti-Spanish opinions of the US public by spreading these rumors that there was like a plot from the Spanish to sink this ship.

Gary (12:49)
We started our conversation talking about this as a non-example of responsible journalism. And I think that's interesting to say if it's a story of competition, had it been a different industry, had they been competing over hamburgers? Right. It's the story of someone who figured out, hey, I'm living in a major city and have the technology to make them cheaper or more appealing, and then have a competitor who sometimes is perhaps imitating or figuring out their own ways. But there's a huge difference because the product is news, the product is information. And what it sounds like is what becomes, I guess, irresponsible is that the drive to have people select your product is actually altering the conversations that are happening among those who are getting it. Is that fair to say when I say getting it, I mean, the newspaper, right?

Mary (13:45)
Well, I think in terms of the Spanish-American War, like, Cuba is a Spanish colony. There have been revolts by Cubans against Spanish rule prior to the 1890s. But what was different about this one was that there was a lot of press reporting about atrocities or exaggerating atrocities of the Spanish against the Cubans. And that when people are seeing this, they're going to demand action. And it's the same thing where, like I said before, if you don't know what's happening, you can't demand that it be stopped. You can't demand that we do something about it. So I think in terms of by choosing to focus on that and report that and then exaggerate it or even make up some of the things you're reporting on in that story, you are wielding tremendous power. And I think that's really interesting because neither of these guys are in public office or not, but they still have incredible power in the sense of what they're influencers. Before influencing was a thing in kind of a nasty way. And I do think it's worth pointing out that even at the time, there were people who said, this isn't true.

Mary (15:05)
You're not reporting on things as they are, because I always think that's important to note, because anytime someone is doing something irresponsible or awful in American history, there's always somebody who's saying, no, this is not right. You're not doing what you need to do. And even after the fact, Pulitzer recognizes that he was his role in generating this fervor over going to war in the Spanish American War, he endowed the Columbia School of Journalism and sets up the Pulitzer Prize almost as a way to say, sorry about that, which I thought was fascinating. There was recognition at the time of contemporary is that this was crossing a line. And then Pulitzer himself after the fact is, you know, other people were doing it too. It's not like I did anything new, but I kind of went too far. So here's a bunch of money, do it right.

Gary (16:03)
In saying the term do it right, there is great power to shaping a narrative, and that narrative shaping in itself, if you're the one telling the story through, in this case, your newspaper, that has real-world impacts on how people perceive the world and actions those people might take in some way. And with great power comes great responsibility. That's what it is. That's right, Uncle Ben. Now you've mentioned a couple of people we've mentioned Hearst and Pulitzer. I think that's actually interesting. Do you think it's worth drilling down a little bit into them?

Mary (16:44)
Yeah, I think both of them have very interesting stories. So why don't we take a quick break and then we'll explore the lives of these two men when we come back.

Mary (17:01)
We're back from our break, and before we left you, we said we would look at the lives of these two men behind this media war, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. And as I am want to do, I like to distill things down to very simple, perhaps two simple terms. I think Pulitzer was the trailblazer in a sort of way, and hers was more of a copycat. He's older. He's actually the son of Hungarian immigrants, so he really has nothing. He worked his way up from nothing. He runs a paper in St. Louis before coming to New York City. And like I said before, he really understood how your eye moves across the page and this desire to see images, the desire to want to be drawn into a story, you want to see a story continue. I think he was brilliant in understanding that and starting that in his publication in the world. And then William Randolph Hearst was actually a great admirer of Pulitzer.

Mary (18:08)
And it's when he acquires another paper, the Journal in New York City, he starts copying everything that Hearst is doing, and then you get this crazy competition that we addressed before. Like I said, Pulitzer, he dies in 1911. So he does not see too much of the 20th century, which again, is a time of huge change. And he endowed the Columbia School of Journalism like I said. So there was some recognition that what he had done, along with Hearst in the Spanish American War was irresponsible. But I think Hearst is a very different character in a way. And his life story, I think, is really interesting as well. He had a very different background than Pulitzer. Right. So Pulitzer is an immigrant, has very little, and then Hearst's story is quite different. Isn't that right, Erin?

Eryn (19:01)
Yeah. His father was like a California gold rush millionaire, so he grew up with money and was at Harvard even in charge of was the editor of the Harvard Lampoon. But then he got expelled from Harvard. Like you said, he was very impressed by Pulitzer, and so he really idolized and looked up to this guy. But Hearst, his father, owned these newspapers. And when he was at Harvard, his father, George, acquired the San Francisco examiner. And so Hearst kept pleading with his father to turn the paper over to him. And George finally relented in 1887. And then Hearst used that as leverage to purchase the New York Journal. That's when he started kind of really investing heavily in talent. He had writers like Mark Twain, Jack London, really well-known names, but he was also investing from the point of poaching from Pulitzer's newspaper, including Odd Colt, who was the illustrator of The Yellow Kid, and Hogan's Alley, which was the comic strip that originated The Yellow Kid. So Hearst was poaching not only these well-known writers but also a lot of the writers and illustrators who worked with Pulitzer at his newspaper.

Eryn (20:33)
And that's what really fueled this competition and started this back and forth, this sensationalism, this yellow journalism. And like you said, Mary, it seems like Hearst was the copycat. But there's a funny story about how because they were publishing multiple times during the day and one of Hearst's editions came out like one or 2 hours earlier than Pulitzer's, and Hearst was the one who kept saying Pulitzer is copying our stories word for word. And so they one day tried to prove this by publishing the story with a Colonel's name that was Reflip W Thenuz, which is a very bizarre name. And so that was in the 02:00 p.m. Edition of Hearst newspaper. And then Pulitzer printed the exact same word for word, including that Colonel's name and his 04:00 p.m. Edition. And then Hearst came back and said it's actually not a real Colonel's name. It's an anagram for 'we pilfer the news. They're getting really dirty with each other and copying each other. But like you said, Hearst lives on far past Pulitzer in 40 more years and so continues to acquire newspapers, magazines, gets into radio, TVs, movies.

Gary (22:07)
It sounds like both understood a lot of the art and science of what we would my safe marketing. Right. Like distributing your product to lots of people. Is it possible to backtrack 1 second, though, we mentioned the yellow kid a couple of times. And I know that in studying history, whether or not you're in a formal classroom or just really like history or that kind of thing, often when we look at this time period, that character, the yellow kid is an important one. And being a podcast, you might be listening to this. Is it worth sort of just clarifying, like what's the deal with the yellow kid?

Mary (22:45)
Sure. Well, he was a character that appeared first in Pulitzer's publication. And again, Pulitzer was the one who really understood the look of the paper. So Hogan's Alley was the name of the cartoon, and it was sort of this big, large image. There's a lot going on. It's a tenement scene. Again, this is the 80s, 1890s. So New York City is a very crowded place. So there's a lot going on in the scene. And the yellow kid was this character that appeared in Hogan's Alley cartoons and always had something simple and almost comical to say about all of the craziness that's going on in the scene.

Gary (23:26)
And he is wearing a big yellow shirt, hence the name.

Mary (23:28)
Yeah, he's wearing a yellow shirt. And again, like I said, it was a point of pride for Pulitzer because people knew the yellow kid and would say, what did the yellow kids have to say today? And when Hearst acquires his paper, he steals the artist away or the illustrator away. So you have the yellow kid appearing in Hearst's publication as well. And that's where the yellow the term yellow journalism comes from because it gets associated with these two papers, these two men printing sensational news to outdo each other. So that's the yellow kid. I never knew that actually before thinking about this podcast. That is where the actual term yellow journalism comes from.

Gary (24:15)
Would it be fair to say that certainly the competition and the creativity that comes out of that in terms of how you're presenting your news to get into the hands of people so they'll read it is one thing? Is it fair to say that there's also something about genuine interest on their behalf of what they want people to be talking about?

Mary (24:41)
That's a big question. I think we're going to have to take a quick break before we tackle that one.

Mary (24:58)
We are back from our break, and we had started our conversation by thinking about this idea of what does responsible journalism look like? And hopefully we gave you a fairly good picture of two men in one example or an example of this yellow journalism and how they crossed that line of into irresponsible journalism. And I think, Gary, your question was ultimately so what? That's my favorite question because that's what students would ask me all the time. Why does it matter? Why should we be concerned? Why does it matter that we have a free press that's reporting on events responsibly? So what, if I may?

Gary (25:48)
It's almost two things. There's the ability to communicate. I think that's one aspect of it. But then there's the value of I think of being informed. I think we in the world of education think there's value to being informed. Correct me if I'm wrong on that one. I don't know. And then beyond being informed, right. Is it baked into being informed that to be responsibly informed means things have to be accurate in terms of not only facts, but also how they're presented?

Eryn (26:23)
This is, again, kind of how we opened up and talking about responsible or irresponsible journalism today. I think people are still asking these questions. Right. Because you have, like, freedom of speech and freedom of the press. And there's this argument that your ability to do that creates a stable society and we should be able to share those opinions with one another. There's this balance. Right. Of what is okay, free speech and the right to inform or give your opinion on things. And when does it cross over into like a dangerous territory? What type of misinformation or disinformation is considered no longer safe or appropriate? And yes, should someone be able to share their opinions? Yeah, because I would like to be able to continue to share my opinions. I don't want that restrained. And I think someone who differs from my opinions would say the same thing. And who's to say who's right, who's wrong? But like, when do we draw the line or where do we draw the line?

Gary (27:24)
That is super interesting that in our discussion, we are bringing up both opinions and information in the same dialogue. So if we can tie that into responsible journalism, then I guess what have we learned from our earlier dialogue about yellow journalism that tells us more about how people are getting information and opinions or opinions? Question Mark?

Mary (28:01)
I think the example of this media war between Hearst and Pulitzer shows us that what you're reading matters and that what you're reading will probably influence your opinion because we're taking in information all the time. Even if we're not reading something or actively thinking, I'm going to sit down and carefully read this article. We're always like sponges for information. We're human beings, and that's going to influence your thoughts. So I think there's like the personal accountability piece of it where I am going to try to not just read something that supports what I already think, but to try to learn more and be informed and maybe understand. Maybe I don't agree with another position, but I understand where you're coming from. And I think there's also the accountability of those in the media who have a lot of power and responsibility. That's something I think that we can also take away from the example of Hearst and Pulitzer. These guys had a tremendous amount of power in what they were telling people. I'm having flashbacks of being an AP history teacher where the kids always say, oh, this is biased, this source is biased. Everybody is biased.

Mary (29:23)
Everything is biased. We're human, so we can't ever be purely objective, but we can be critical consumers of information. And I think on the individual level that they're seeking out, not just being in the echo chamber and thinking of this person agrees with me or this supports what I already think, but trying to understand other positions or where they're coming from. But then what you're reading and who's printing what you're reading, they have that responsibility, too, like going back to Uncle Ben with great power comes great responsibility. And you would hope that we talk about having civic virtues and values of responsibility and moderation and things like that. So you would hope that those in those positions of power recognize they have that power and also have that responsibility to their fellow citizens to try to paint an accurate picture of what's going on. And that's an incredibly difficult thing to do. I think both at both that level and then at the smaller personal level. But like Eryn said before, it's something that we're always doing and there's never going to be a clear endpoint. It's always changing and evolving. And that's the fun and the messiness of living in the United States and having this freedom of speech and the freedom of the press enshrined in our Bill of Rights like we do.

Gary (30:47)
Yeah, we often talk about that with the word rights, often in the same dialogues. We'll say also responsibilities. And I think using that term is exactly a great way to take a look at it, starting the whole conversation about irresponsible times. Really, we're talking about responsibility, and we're talking about really, there have been I mean, we live in a world now where responsibility has been taken in many ways by those who share news. We refer to the free press, like those who literally put out newspapers, right. That's what the press is all about. And that taking responsibility takes the form since the 1910s of codes of ethics that, again, there's sort of an art and science to taking responsibility. That lessons, I think, were learned in many ways since then about. There are codes of ethics for journalists now, and those are taken very seriously. And we can recognize and point to something to say like, this is or is not a responsible choice or decision to be made in ways that might have grown out of what was learned from an irresponsible time.

Mary (31:56)
I think your actions have consequences Both at the individual level and then at the larger level of someone like hers. We're not all like William Randolph Hearst. We have an Empire of magazines and a film company and radio. But that doesn't mean that we should be any less responsible in how we consume news or how we share our opinions or how we talk to people with different opinions or look at something that says something we may disagree with. So I think that all comes back to self-governance and checking yourself, and if we're all doing that, Then the larger society will function more amicably. And I think that's the goal. And, of course, there's what is intended and then what is. And that's the messiness of the American story. Ongoing.

Mary (32:56)
We started our conversation with this idea of responsibility, and we have said that we, as individuals, we have a right to express our opinions, the press. We have a right to a free press. But it's not just expressing something, it's the responsibility for the consequences of what you have to say or what you have printed or what you have posted online. So my call to action for you listeners Is to not just share your opinion, but take accountability for the response Because nothing just goes out there into the void. Someone is always listening. Until then, keep asking questions.

Intro/Outro (33:45)
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exists in a free society. Check out our educational resources and programs on our website mybri.org.  Any questions or suggestions for future episodes? We'd love to hear from you. Just email us at comments@FabricofHistory.org and don't forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram To stay connected and informed about future episodes. Thank you for listening.