Chapter 5 Summary

Moving our focus some 100 years after the American Revolution, we set our sights on the Spanish American War and the major journalistic events that led up to it.

Joseph Pulitzer

Much like Sam Adams and Thomas Paine and their impact on the Revolutionary War, The Spanish American War was driven mainly behind another two ambitious journalists, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. We'll start with Pulitzer, who was actually born in Hungary in 1847, and came to the United States as a mercenary who fought for the North in the Civil War. After the war, Pulitzer moved west and wrote for a German language newspaper in St. Louis. With his tremendous work ethic and ambition, Pulitzer was able to buy a bankrupt newspaper and merge it with another to create the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Pulitzer lead a new style of newspaper that targeted the masses of America, thinking that newspapers should be cheap and written clearly and concisely. Pulitzer built his newspaper into a powerhouse, leading St. Louis in reform initiatives such as exposing fraud at the polls, and cleansing the city of brothels.

In 1883, Pulitzer started the paper New York World, which targeted the huge urban working class of New York. Despite many critics, the World became the largest paper in the country. Pulitzer used dramatic headlines and his clear, concise writing to serve the people and expose fraud and fight the evils of the public. Citizens latched on to the paper and its circulation leapt from 15,000 when he bought it, to 250,000 four years later.

William Randolph Hearst

William Randolph Hearst was born in 1863, and lead a much different life than Pulitzer. Born to an extremely wealthy father, William lead a very privileged life, one in which saw his father buy his admission into Harvard. But, like any other privileged college student, he drank too much and wasted his time doing everything else but studying. Hearst was kicked out of Harvard, and moved on to work for the New York World. After working there briefly, he persuaded his father to let him edit the San Francisco Examiner, a financially failing newspaper.

Hearst had found his calling. Using his fathers vast wealth, he hired a fantastic staff around him and undertook ambitious and progressive crusades. Much like Pulitzer, Hearst appealed to the masses, and even took things a step further by creating stupefying events on days where the news was dull. After eight years, the Examiner grew in popularity and its circulation grew from 12,000 to 2000,000. In 1895, Hearst bought the New York Journal, dropped the price from two cents to one, and began competing with Pulitzer's World.

Within a year, the Journal became New York's second largest paper, trailing only the World. Hearst and Pulitzer battled for readers, and filled papers with emotion packed stories to shock and entertain the masses. By 1897, the Journal's daily circulation reached 500,000, right within shouting distance of the World's 600,000.

Fueled by Cuban rebels striking back at the Spanish economic interests in Cuba, Hearst began championing their cause and painting them as patriotic heroes. Much like Sam Adams did with his rebel cause, Hearst used sensational stories of Spanish brutality in order to gain American support for the rebels. Despite initially opposing American involvement in Cuba, Pulitzer began to "support" it in order to increase popularity in his newspaper. The World didn't come up with as sensational stories as the Journal, but both newspapers used made up events and stories to increase their respective popularity.

On February 15, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, killing 260 U.S. sailors. Immediately, the Journal threw the blame on the Spanish, with no facts to back it up. Hearst's sensational reporting buoyed the Journal past the World in circulation to over one million. Pulitzer was reluctant to sacrifice the truth for popularity in this case, but his tune quickly changed in order to keep up with the Journal. 

The reporting of both the Journal and World whipped the citizens of the United States into a frenzy, demanding for war. President William McKinley was hesitant to take such drastic measures, understandably so, but soon caved in to the pressure and adopted a pro-war stance. The might of the 4th Estate had forced the hand of the president, and on April 19th of that year, the United States Senate passed a war resolution.

The shame here lies with the fact that the Spanish American War could have been avoided and American lives saved, considering that the Spanish were willing to negotiate. The war of the newspapers lead to an actual war of the people, with Hearst and Pulitzer having to mach each other blow for blow. It is the thought of many that without the arrival of Hearst in New York journalism, there wouldn't have been a war.

In this case, journalism didn't lead a cause with good intentions, but instead flexed its muscle and exercised its power over the people and government.