By Maren M.

Once upon a time, when radio was young, television a mere dream, and the Internet far in the future, newspapers were the sole source of news. Shouts of ãExtra! Extra!ä could be heard on the streets of every large city as newspaper boys wandered the streets selling copies of their dailies.

Newspapers flourished during the technological revolution due to all the developing branches. In illustration, woodcuts, zincographs, and halftone photo engraving, became available at cheaper prices. The Hoe Companyâs web feed quadruple press was capable of printing 24,000 sixteen-page papers an hour, and mass printing on high-speed presses became the norm. Ottmar Merganthalerâs Linotype machine ended the tedious and time-consuming process of setting type by hand. It was now easier and more cost efficient than ever to print a periodical, and the newspaper industry blossomed.

During the Jacksonian era, as New York City became the nationâs commercial center, it became the center of journalism as well. Over the next few decades the major New York City daily papers formed a competitive newspaper industry. By the 1880âs and 1890âs they were located along the southeast slope of City Hall Park on a street called Park Row. This location was ideal because the ãdailiesä were close to the subjects and sources of their stories. The cityâs politicians were available for interviews just across the street in city hall, and just a few blocks south was Wall Street, the center of finance. Surrounding this high profile neighborhood on all sides were miles and miles of slums, providing the source of crime news.

Park Row was actually composed of two streets that were roughly bisected by Printing House Square. On the southern half were New Yorkâs most prominent daily newspapers, a strip of not more than a city block long. The foreign language presses were located on the Northern half of the street, extending all the way to the present entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge. The street was filled with some of the cityâs most famous buildings, home to the New York Tribune, Herald, World, Sun, and the New York Times. At the northern corner stood the brass domed World Building, a sixteen-story structure that was the tallest in the city at its dedication in 1890.

For years, knowledge of the news was a privilege of the upper, well-educated classes. Newspapers targeted this audience by using larger words and more difficult sentence structures. The upper classes did not want the lower classes involved in politics, and therefore did not want them to know or understand what was occurring in the world around them. As far as they were concerned, the poor had no right to know. In the 1880âs and 1890âs, the period known as the Gilded Age, immigration to New York City reached its peak, and the city became more culturally diverse, as well as more internationally minded. In the Gilded Age, a time of immense economic growth, publishers and editors alike looked to make more money off their papers. While there was extreme poverty among the lower classes, on the other side of the spectrum, people were making more money than ever. Men such as Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller were treading on new ground as millionaires. As advertising became more popular in periodicals, circulation numbers became more important, allowing the papers to increase their advertising rates. The development of mass production during the industrial revolution meant that tens of thousands of men and women of all different backgrounds crowded into to the cities in waves of immigration. They were uneducated, unskilled workers, hungry for jobs, willing to work long hours to earn enough money to survive. The millions of immigrants crowded into tenements, and although the natives often wanted nothing to do with the ãdirty immigrants,ä in their numbers the immigrants opened up a new market as the expanding lower class.

The new immigrantsâ presence, and their condition, contributed to the rise of what contemporaries called ãsensational journalism,ä and what critics since have disparaged as Yellow Journalism. They have attacked it for being sensationalistic, tactless, vulgar and gossipy, as well as reporting dishonest news to a lower class audience of little value.

This paper seeks to show that yellow journalism was justified if not honorable for two interwoven reasons: First, the yellow journalism of the 1880âs and 90âs was opportunistic capitalism at its best, targeting a growing immigrant population. Each immigrant was seen by the newspaper industry as a potential consumer, who could be attracted not only by content, but also by a new newspaper format. Secondly, more than just a business endeavor, the editors of the yellow dailies believed in supporting the little man, educating the masses, and democratizing the news by making it appeal to the commoner. In contrast to elitist papers such as the New York Times which targeted an educated and affluent audience, the publishers of the World and the Journal believed that everyone had a right to understand what was happening around them and why. So while ãdishonorableä stories covered the front pages in order to appeal to the masses, the content inside offered something truly valuable to their lives. The papers began to compete for this audience, and it was this movement that changed American newspapers. In his book American Journalism Frank Luther Mott says that ãYellow Journalism·must not be considered as synonymous with sensationalism. It was founded, to be sure, upon the familiar aspects of sensationalism-crime news, scandal and gossip, divorces and sex, and stress upon the reporting of disasters and sports; but it added to these elements certain characteristic treatment. The distinguishing techniques of yellow journalism were: (1) scare-heads, in which excessively large type· screamed excitement, often about comparatively unimportant news·(2) the lavish use of pictures· (3) impostures and frauds of various kinds·(4) the Sunday supplement, with colored comics and superficial articles; and (5) more or less ostentatious sympathy with the ãunderdog,ä with campaigns against abuses suffered by the common people.ä

With this definition of yellow journalism in mind, it is easy to understand how the yellow dailies had a few enemies. In addition to taking heat from moral reformers, yellow dailies were constantly defending themselves from other papers. The New York Times and other such papers of the intelligentsia were continuously bashing yellow journalism and the men who ran it. It is important to note that at this time, the Times did not have as high circulation numbers as The World and The Journal. While the Times was competing for a very different audience than these papers, they wanted the circulation numbers that the World and the Journal had. The Times felt the need to belittle both the editors of the yellow papers, and their audience. They attacked Hearst and Pulitzer for abusing their independent wealth and ãtrying to slug each other to death with heavy money bags,ä and for printing such dishonorable content. The Timesâs slogan, ãAll the News Thatâs Fit to Printä was aimed contemptuously at the yellow dailies. Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the Times in 1896, belittled the content of The World and The Journal, and distinguished the mission of the Times as ãto tell promptly and accurately the happening and occurrences that were not sensational but were of real importance in peopleâs routine affairs.ä The editors and readers of the Times also did not approve of the readers of the World and The Journal. . As was printed in The Journalist, ãMen who want the Times would pay three cents as soon as one.ä These elitist men who read the Times believed that because the lower classes were uneducated and poor, they had no right to read the news. Reading the news and becoming aware was the first step in the lower classes becoming involved in politics, which the upper classes were fully against.

The war was by no means one sided. The World noticeably fought back and equally attacked the Times for being elitist. The masses glorified common sense, and as a result, developed a disliking of anything that seemed ostentatious, labeling it as un-American. Indeed, this type of pretentiousness is quite un-American, going against the basic American principle that all men are created equal. On September 30,1883 when the Times cut its price to two cents, acting as the voice of the masses, the World reprinted an article from the Denver Tribune arguing cynically that the reduction was a mistake, since the Times appealed to a ãbetterä class of people. ãNearly all its readers are aristocratic people·and it is necessary that they should understand Greek and Latin and be familiar with the classics in order to thoroughly appreciate the paper·The drolleries of the [humorist] are usually pitched in such a lofty key that none but skilled collegians are able to drift along with him·It should have raised its price to ten cents and put another encyclopedical Harvard College Graduate at work on the editorial page with a stylus.ä

THE IMPACT OF THE IMMIGRANTS

The United States had seen periods of great population influx during the 1840âs and again in the years after the civil war, but no influx was as great as that in the 1880âs. The cityâs total number of foreign-born residents rose by almost fifty percent between 1880 and 1890, by which time two out of five New Yorkers was a first generation immigrant. Fresh off the boat, these immigrants went directly to their respective slums: the Germans to Kleindeutchland, the Italians to Little Italy, the Jews to the lower East side, and so on. This distinct separation directly refuted the melting pot myth, and practically broadcasted the immigrantsâ foreignness. To native-born Americans, these slums were a constant reminder that there were unwanted, dirty, immigrants among them, who were not attempting to assimilate, but rather preserve their old ways by flocking together. Native laborers resented the immigrants because their existence meant cheaper labor, and this in turn meant unemployment. Because of these conditions, immigrants had an extremely hard time adjusting to their new lives.

For those immigrants who had just arrived, a newspaper was a representation of what mattered to Americans. The printed word spoke towards their values and their lives, informing the public about what was happening, where, when, and why. Learning the way of life of Americans helped the immigrants feel part of a community and further understand their new surroundings. In a city where it was very difficult to assimilate, picking up American newspapers, even if they couldnât read them, was a form of Americanization.

Problems of poverty, alienation, and uncertainty as to how to better their situation led the immigrants to seek a means of comfort, shelter, and Americanism. Although numerous papers were available for immigrants that were printed in their own language, these papers did not help them feel more comfortable in their new city, and only served to further alienate them. There was great pressure on the new immigrants to assimilate, and as a result more purchased English newspapers; even if they were not fully literate they wanted to read the headlines. It should then come as no surprise that the newspaper at this time with the highest circulation rate was the one targeted to the lower class immigrants. While publications all over the country were printing editorials, letters, and articles bashing immigrants and their presence in America, The World became the paper of the immigrant, embracing all nationalities. On January 27, 1884, The World printed this editorial: ãOur greatest merit, as it should be our greatest boast, is that we have assimilated all that is vital from every available stock, and, utterly disregarding the class distinctions of the past, have given Nature a new freedom to work out a new race·What [the immigrants] bring us is strong blood and unlimited possibilities.ä

Thus The World glorified the immigrants, hailing them as bringing something new and exciting with them to America. The immigrants now composed such a large percentage of the lower class that it was worth it to the yellow dailies to devote time to them. The World took sides with the new immigrants and other members of the lower class on those issues that most concerned them, appealing to the lost, lonesome, and unaided. In 1885, for example, the paper became the voice of the tenement house population on the question of temperance, arguing that, ãStrict sabbatarians who enjoy their warm firesides, their good dinners, their fine wines and the playing and singing of their family and friends on Sunday evening have no just right to say that the workingman who labors all the week shall not be allowed to enjoy his beer and music in a public garden on the only day of the week not given up to toil.ä

Even if they could only barely read the headlines, to have an American newspaper made them feel American. To carry it with them on their way to work they felt in place. Just like all the businessmen around them, they too could have in their hand todayâs news; what was important to an American. Aware of this readership, papers like the World covered their pages with pictures and bold headlines, and urged their reporters to utilize simple vocabulary and sentence structure. They tried to stay away from intellectual airs, and keep the publicâs interest with stories of sex, crime, violence, and gossip.

THE HONOR IN SENSATIONALISM Enter: Joseph Pulitzer, 1883 Joseph Pulitzer mastered the art of sensationalism, using flashy headlines and the utmost selectivity in deciding what to print. Although Hearstâs Journal would later surpass him in circulation, Pulitzer should be noted as the pioneer in this field. It was indisputable that the lower classes found the content of large pictures, tales of gossip, and pseudo-science to be entertaining and enticing. Pulitzer used this strategy to achieve high circulation, but also used his paper as a means of education for the masses. No matter how low the quality of the news might be, Pulitzer was determined to keep his editorials always on a high level.

In comparison to The New York Times, the paper of the intelligentsia, Pulitzerâs headlines were telling and grabbing, such as ãA brutal Negro whips his nephew to death in South Carolina.ä Pulitzer argued that not only did these headings sell papers, but also had a significance of more consequence than the worries of the ãpolite people.ä In defense of their paper, the editors of the World wrote: ãA newspaper relates the events of the day. It does not manufacture its record of corruption and crimes, but tells of them as they occur. If it failed to do so it would be an unfaithful chronicler· The daily journal is like the mirror- it reflects that which is before it· Let those who are startled by it blame the people who are before the mirror, and not the mirror, which only reflects their features and actions.ä

Thus, the World hoped to awaken the sleeping commoner by presenting him with the problems that the city was facing. Having been educated, it was then up to him or her to do something about the city.

The editors of the World saw themselves as a servant of the common people. Their mission was to report what happened in full to an audience that was disrespected by their critics. The upper classes often thought that The World was a second-rate, trashy way of exploiting crime and gossip, but the World saw itself as reporting more of what other papers ignored in an effort to present the world to the people. While one might argue that its content was second-rate at best, the editors used it to attract the consumer. The editorials were the pride and joy of The World and The Journal. The editors attempted to speak in the editorials to and for the masses of people who had previously only sporadically felt connected to the world of print news. They attempted to influence as well as inform and entertain them, but in doing so follow the first rule of popular journalism- that the views of the readers must be honored, and the paper must give them assurance that their own preconceived notions and opinions are valid in order to gain their confidence, and make them more receptive to more progressive thought. Among the masses, there was an immense distrust of intellectuality and a hatred of privilege. On every matter, The World sided with the lower classes, trying to make them feel more accepted and more comfortable. It attempted to explain the injustices of the city, and the corruptness of the government, and in doing so offer some comfort in a hectic city. ãIt is a great misfortune that with all its enterprise, with all its ability, with all its honesty, the press of this city and of this country is not entirely on the side of the people in all great social questions· But the personal influences of some rich proprietors are stronger than the claims of the people· We do not blame them for it too severely. They cannot help it. It is only human nature. Man is greatly controlled by his environment. His sympathies, affections, aspirations, are most directly influenced by those nearest him.ä

The New York World championed the people of New York City who had no voice: the poor and the immigrants, those living below 14th street, and who did not enjoy the luxuries of the city. The World saw itself, in essence, on a continuous crusade, stemming from its refusal to accept the present conditions of the poor. Pulitzer attempted to combine sensationalism with crusading, in order to both draw the attention of the reader, and educate him on what he did not yet know.

In addition, The World glorified the poor and the working class. It was not only their voice but also their champion. ãOur aristocracy is the aristocracy of labor. The man who by honest, earnest toils supports his family in respectability·maintaining his good name through privations and temptations, and winning from his children respect as well as love, is the proudest aristocracy in the American Republic. The new World is his organ.ä

The paper went so far in its mission of public service as to serve as a community bulletin, encouraging people to come forward, come together and unite for a greater cause and for each other. In such a large city, it was often difficult, especially for foreigners, to find this sense of community that Pulitzer offered. One such occasion was when Pulitzer tried to raise money for the Statue of Liberty. He wrote: ãThe World is the peopleâs paper, and it now appeals to the people to come forward and raise this money. The $250,000 that the making of the Statue cost was paid in by the masses of the French people- by the workingmen, the tradesmen, the shop girls, the artisans- by all, irrespective of class or condition. Let us respond in like manner. Let us not wait for the millionaires to give this money. It is not the gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of America, but a gift from the whole people of France to the whole people of America.ä

Within days the money started to pour in. Pulitzer was not the only leading yellow journalist. William Randolph Hearstâs Journal was a later entry in the successful yellow journalism business. Hearst had been watching Pulitzer from a distance, both admiring and noting how he ran his paper. Upon arrival in New York City he capitalized on the progress that Pulitzer had already made. In 1895 he bought The Morning Journal, the paper originally started by Joseph Pulitzerâs younger brother Albert. Hearst immediately utilized the same strategies that Pulitzer had been using all along: he too used large, often misleading headlines to attract people to his paper. Inside, on the editorial pages, he used short words, simple sentences, and terse paragraphs that were easier for the masses. He too splashed photographs and illustrations all over the pages so that even those who could not read or did not understand English could get a grasp of what was being said. Hearst too took the road of activism.

In conclusion, there is little that is dishonorable about ãyellow journalism.ä Before The World and The Journal were born, the New York newspaper industry served only the elite, functioning in a very un-American, undemocratic manner. Yellow journalists were determined to even this out. This was a movement that grew out of a time when immigrants crowded into the city with little sense of belonging and even less money. It is logical that yellow journalism, which later spread throughout the United States (notably Chicago, Denver, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and San Francisco) and reached its peak in 1899-1900, was born in New York City in the 1880âs. New York was filled with lower class people, many of them immigrants, who formed the ideal enormous population just waiting for a newspaper that was relevant to their lives. Although the stories that they printed may not have been the most dignified, they passed on the news, and in their editorials managed to educate and support the immigrants in a way that no other source did. In opening up yellow dailies they democratized the news, and in educating the lower classes, gave them a means of entering a political society. Pulitzer was a Gilded Age success story- the exciting cover pages to his newspapers allowed him to have the highest circulation, and turn his newspaper into a profit-making machine.

Yellow journalism follows with the American ideal of equal opportunity for all. Believing in the rights of all Americans, yellow dailies helped make the lower classes more aware of what was happening around them in their city. In addition, the yellow newspapers fit in with the development of the American dream in New York City. The yellow dailies catered to the immigrants needs, gave them a voice and allowed them the knowledge to participate in society and a means for social opportunity through education about current events. Moreover, the strategies pioneered by Pulitzer and used by Hearst would change the publication industry tremendously. Although readers got bored with sensationalism in the first few years of the twentieth century, other newspapers, including the rival New York Times, incorporated some of the strategies that had been used so successfully by the sensational newspapers.