yellow journalism: Quick Facts

Written and fact-checked by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Photos

Side-by-side front pages of 1898 newspapers with bold headlines blaming a mine for sinking the USS Maine; left is The World New York newspaper, right is New York Evening Journal newspaper.

Illustration by Richard Felton Outcault of the Yellow Kid, a bald child in a yellow nightshirt, on the cover of sheet music titled The Dugan Kid Who Lives in Hogan's Alley.

Editorial cartoon by Leon Barritt shows Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst wearing yellow dresses and no shoes, pushing on opposite sides of a pillar of blocks spelling WAR.

See All Images →

Topics

Today in History—February 15: The Headline That Led America to War tabloid journalism journalism arts journalism sports journalism science and technology journalism sports broadcasting longform journalism business journalism partisan press lifestyle journalism local journalism solutions journalism

Key People

Winifred Sweet Black.

Winifred Sweet Black

American journalist

Joseph Pulitzer, detail of a portrait by C. de Grimm from The Curio, November 1887.

Joseph Pulitzer

American newspaper publisher

default image

Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer

American journalist