The hoary claim that the yellow journalism of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer brought on the Spanish-American War is often asserted but never persuasively substantiated.
Itâ??s a notion that suggests the worst tendencies of the news media â?? that in extreme cases, they media can plunge the country into war, as Hearst and Pulitzer supposedly did with the sometimes-inflammatory content of their New York City newspapers.
Although the claim was long ago demolished as a media-driven myth, it remains too good not to be true, too delicious to resist.
It was asserted without substantiation the other day in a commentary posted online by the Scripps Howard news service.
â??In fact,â? wrote the commentaryâ??s author, Dan K. Thomasson, â??yellow journalism was founded in New York by Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst and even brought about the Spanish-American War. But as the competition began to thin and more truth-smitten journalists took over, respectability began making inroads and ultimately won the day â?? with an exception or two.â?
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