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yellow journalism
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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.
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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.
Yellow journalism's heyday The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba, provided plenty of opportunities for sensational headlines by competing New York newspapers the New York World and the New York Journal. On the left, the World's front page from February 20, 1898, proclaimed, “THE WORLD'S LATEST DISCOVERIES INDICATE MAINE WAS BLOWN UP BY SUBMARINE MINE,” whereas the Journal published this headline on March 25, 1898: “SPAIN GUILTY! DESTROYED BY A FLOATING MINE.” To this day what exactly caused the Maine explosion is not known, although many suspect it was an accident.

yellow journalism

journalism
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History

Yellow journalism is a term coined in the 1890s to describe sensational coverage of events in newspapers to attract readers and boost circulation. In many ways, it was its day’s version of “clickbait” or “fake news.” While the term came to be used broadly for irresponsible reporting, it had its origins in the fierce competition between two New York City papers, the New York World and the New York Journal, and their hard-charging, high-profile publishers,...

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