"Yellow" Journalism

As newspapers began to compete more and more with one another to increase circulation and obtain more advertising revenue, a different type of journalism was developed by publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

In the mid-1890s, Pulitzer (in the New York World) and Hearst (in the San Francisco Examiner and later the New York Morning Journal) transformed newspapers with sensational and scandalous news coverage, the use of drawings and the inclusion of more features such as comic strips.

After Pulitzer began publishing color comic sections that included a strip entitled "The Yellow Kid" (right) in early 1896, this type of paper was labeled "yellow journalism." Drawn by R.F. Outcault, the popular (if now-unfunny) strip became a prize in the struggle between Pulitzer and Hearst in the New York newspaper wars. Outcault moved the strip to Hearst's papers after nine months, where it competed with a Pulitzer-sponsored version of itself.

"The Yellow Kid" proved the first merchandising phenomenon of the comics. The character was portrayed in keychains and collector cards, appeared on stage and even had a short-lived magazine named after him.

The papers themselves trumpeted their concern for the "people." At the same time, yellow journalists choked up the news channels on which the common people depended with shrieking, gaudy, sensation-loving, devil-may-care kinds of journalism. This turned the high drama of life into a cheap melodrama and led to stories being twisted into the forms best suited for sales by the hollering newsboy.

From: "Newspapers," Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia. © 1993-1996 Microsoft Corporation; "Readings in Journalism History," Fall 1994: Compiled by Erna Smith, San Francisco State University. Chap 9: "The New Journalism"; and, "100 Years of American Newspaper Comics" by Maurice Horn, © 1996 Random House Publishing.

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