The Impact Of Yellow Journalism On The Spanish American War

Yellow Journalism before and during the time of the Spanish-American War was used used to fabricate political events between the Americans and the Spanish and used as a mechanism to go to war with the Spanish. In return, the news agencies profited and capitalized on the sales by selling tons of newspapers. The journalists would write about what was going on over seas and they would exaggerate what was happening. Yellow Journalism brought upon disagreements, deception, and lies, while depicting the Spanish to be some sort of Monster that was trying to destroy America. Yellow Journalism caused havoc across the world and served as a catalysts for the war. Evidently Yellow Journalism is exaggerated reportings on what happened overseas, used as a false propaganda to rile up the Americans, and lastly motivate them to go to war.

Although “Yellow Journalism was not totally responsible for the Spanish American War, by knowing the definition of “Yellow Journalism”, one would conclude this was exactly the type of journalism that aided in the Spanish American War. The term, “The tongue is a powerful weapon” is true but, stories that were written by Journalist Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst spread like wildfire through word of mouth and greatly aided in America’s involvement in the Spanish American War.

In the mid-1800s, Spain ruled the island of Cuba. the United States, at that time, received most of Cuba's exports, and they supported the Cuban independence movement; if Cuba was independent, then the United States would benefit from the country. Soon, the big U.S. presses, such as The New York Journal and The New York World, knew that the event was in the people's feelings. They sensationalized their headlines and graphic features to attract readers, which soon was known as "yellow journalism". The press also knew a lot of the reader's interests, and they exaggerated their news. During the January of 1898, the United States sent the USS Maine, which is a battleship, to Havana, which is the capital of Cuba, in order to halt the riots between

“DESTRUCTION OF THE WARSHIP MAINE WAS WORK OF AN ENEMY” read the front page of the New York Journal in 1890, after a US battle ship sunk from an explosion. However, the sinking of the ship was a complete accident, and this publishing of Yellow Journalism was a key factor that pushed us into the war against Spain.

The quote "A Splendid little war" by Secretary of State John Hay summarizes the Spanish American War in 1898. While this war could be seen as an act of aggression by the 20th century standards this war was beneficial to the United States of America while being deviating to the Kingdom of Spain for many reasons.

The first cause of the Spanish American War was the yellow journalism. The yellow journalism was written to enrage readers about Valeriano Weyler’s brutality. Some of the things that was said was the children were thrown to the sharks. This caused America’s sympathy for Cuba to grow larger.

Yellow Journalism was an increasingly unacceptable issue causing information to be misinterpreted to appeal to the public and influence the masses to feel a particular way to have power over governmental decisions. The Spanish-American war was so outstandingly influenced by the Yellow Press published for the populations to read that it was the biggest reason the war started. Accordingly, the history books state that the government and congress did not agree with the decision to go to war, the opinion of the masses, however, was exceedingly forceful that Congress passed the act to go to war due to public opinion altered by Yellow

On April 19th, 1898, The United States impulsively waged a war with imperialist Spain that would forever change our country for better and for worse. There are many different factors that led to the war, but in my opinion, one key cause is of much greater importance than the others. As a result of the war, American became known as an imperialistic nation and a world power. How could such a “little” war have such a large impact on American society at the turn of the 20th century?

The Spanish American War started in 1898 and lasted about four months. Although the war might have seemed focused on freeing Cuba from Spain and gaining independence for Cuba and the Philippines, it was actually stimulated by nationalism and commercialism. Commercialism was a major factor when declaring war because the United States depended on Cuba and the Philippines for trade and business with other countries, especially in Asia and Latin America. Another major factor for the war was that the United States wanted to spread its Anglo-Saxon culture around the world and emerge as a world-wide power. Other minor motives for the war include the United States coming to the aid of the Cubans in their revolt against Spain and the feeling that

The major underlying reasons behind the Spanish-American War were simply extensions of the jingoism and slandering journalism trends in the U.S. during the late 19th century. Although the Spanish

The Spanish-American war began when an unknown ship sank the USS Maine in Havana, which was sent to protect U.S. citizens and property after the anti-Spanish riots. Yellow journalism contributed to the U.S. declaring war by using “sensational stories that tugged at readers’ heartstrings to sell papers.” These papers blamed Spain for the sinking of the ship, even though they had no evidence to prove it. Spain declared war on April 24, 1898 and the U.S. declared war the next day. These declarations of war began the Spanish-American war. It lasted only four months.

There were a plethora of important events that took place that prompted the beginning of The Spanish American war. The war was officially started in 1898, bringing joy to the citizens of America and dismay to then president William Mckinley. Before the war, Cuba had been fighting for independence from Spain. The Cuban’s had already lost in the ten year war earlier, which had been fought to gain their independence from Spain. In the state's, newspapers and other media sources were greatly exaggerating the horrors and atrocities being

The Spanish-American War in 1898 was a point where American’s demonstrated their power and true colors. America wanted to free the Cubans from Spain, but it was not purely out of the interest of the Cubans. America was in it for the Philippines. Spain had control of the Philippines, and the Philippines were located in close proximity to China. The issue here was that the Philippines was not interested in having the U.S. around and rebelled against the American forces (47) .The U.S. wanted to capitalize on the economic struggles in China and the Philippines was

"American imperialism in 1898 was not a sudden abandonment of anti-colonial tradition but was a logical extension of commercial expansion, something the US had been doing throughout its history" (SparkNotes: The Spanish American War, 1898-1901,: Effects of the Treaty). President McKinley was not interested in wars of conquest or of territorial aggression. His interest in expansion was "to make the United States first in international commerce and as a means to implement its humanitarian and democratic goals" (Faragher, J., Buhle, M. J., & Armitage, S. H. ,2008, Out of Many, A History of the American People, 6th ed., Vol. 2, p. 561). McKinley would eventually be forced to act in a humanitarian effort for the people of Cuba and to protect

Censorship of bad news about the war in newspapers and magazines to maintain morale and support for the war effort was also vital to this new age of waging war.