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The media has a way of manipulating people for their own benefits. They have the ability to sway someone's opinions to favor their own personal beliefs and in doing so, they begin to gain momentum for their cause. This chapter depicts a perfect guideline of how you can win over so many people and get them to be on your side of the cause. A warmonger is a person who advocates war. Being that this chapter is called "Journalism as Warmonger" lets us know that the journalists were supporting and encouraging the war, which ultimately lead us into the Spanish-American War. The method used so robustly was yellow journalism. The Spanish-American War was triggered by the many lies and distorted reports that were published by Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Their dishonesty in their reports were increased so much to the point where they started to create events just for the purpose of outdoing one another, and increasing their circulation. They took sensationalism to its peak.
Joseph Pulitzer began his years as a journalist who would "actively crusade in the community interest" as well as writing his works with accurate information. William Randolph Hearst set out to grab readers by entertainment. When there wasn't any news worth reporting, he would hire people to act out roles, creating his own shocking stories to write about. In 1895, after idolizing Pulitzer for so long, he finally decided that he wanted to compete with him. Once the war was ignited between the two, they would make sure to create a combination of news and shocking entertainment that would draw more readers to their paper. So with every coverage that they did, they would always exxagerate the information that they gathered or they would include false information. In 1895, Cuba and the Spanish had their own personal problems amongst each other. Cuba decreased Spanish economic interests by destroying their goods and the transportation used in transporting those goods. Hearst sided with the Cubans saying that all they wanted was "liberty" and he made the Spaniards out to be brutal and mean. When the problems that the Cubans and the Spanish had toward each other started to reveal itself more effortlessly, Pulitzer didn't feel as though the United States should partake in the conflict. As Hearts' circulation grew due to his sensationalistic reports about the conflict between the two, Pulitzer changed his mind to support the choice of helping the Cubans. In doing this, his circulation increased as well, and the war between both Pulizter and Hearst continued, while simultaneously advocating that the United States go into war.
In December of 1896, Hearst sent reporter Richard Harding Davis and artist Frederic Remington to Cuba to report on whatever it is that they witnessed. He was so eager on getting new and entertaining news, that he offered them $3,000 instead of the normal $120 a month, to go. Remington had updated Hearst about their findings, reporting that there was nothing to report, but Hearst was determined on making something out of nothing. He printed a story stating how Spanish officers forced young Cuban women strip, making the Spanish officers look like really bad people. When "New York World", Pulitzer's paper, found the women who had been "stripped", they were told a different version. The young women said that they were searched by a female officer. After that false story was published by Hearst, Pulitzer sent his own reporters to Cuba. After many stories being written and published based off of inaccurate or created information, the Spaniards wanted to do something about it. In 1898 they took Hearst's boat from the Havana Harbor. This greatly upset Hearst leading him to speak negatively about the Spanish and the United States navy for not doing anything about his boat. He was able to cause a lot more rifts between the Spanish and the United States when the U.S.S. Maine exploded on February 15, 1898, killing 260 U.S. sailors. Both Pulitzer and Hearst pushed the United States into war by what they wrote in their paper; because of their headlines, false representation, drawings, and editorials.
