a treatise on the creation of Yellow Journalism and the loss of independent journalism in America.

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Journalism, according to G.K. Chesterton, ''largely consists of saying 'Lord Jones is Dead' to people who never knew that Lord Jones was alive.'' But through the ages, it has always been of interest and indeed of great importance, to receive news about local and global events. As news reporting became ever more important in everyday society, the reliability and accuracy of its content became increasingly vital. The local citizen had little chance to actually review each article for precision and so relied on the journalists for completeness and fairness. Whatever was written was taken as the gospel truth and it was up to the reporters, journalists, editors and their management to accurately report current events.

 

By the end of the 19th Century, the media, mainly in the form of newspapers and weekly magazines, had risen to a level of importance that few could have imagined in prior times. By the latter half of the 1800s the print media had grown in importance around the world to a social status that rivaled even government institutions. Journalism had risen to become the Fourth Power, commonly known as the Fourth Estate, a nongovernmental, private group of independent companies that had the ability to sway the general public in almost any direction they chose. Around the world, the power of the media had become as important as the greatest heads of state of any nation, and as such, needed to be brought under control of these same rulers lest they find themselves on the wrong end.

 

The term fourth estate is frequently attributed to the nineteenth century historian Carlyle, though he himself seems to have attributed it to Edmund Burke: Burke said there were Three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important than they all. It is not a figure of speech, or a witty saying; it is a literal fact, .... Printing, which comes necessarily out of Writing, I say often, is equivalent to Democracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. ..... Whoever can speak, speaking now to the whole nation, becomes a power, a branch of government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is that he have a tongue which others will listen to; this and nothing more is requisite.”

 

Most countries simply took over all media coverage of events. The easiest way to ensure that the media reports what you want is to feed them the stories they put in their newspapers and journals. In much of the First World, private enterprise was allowed to report independent of government. In some of those countries, such as France, political parties were allowed to set up their own newspapers and journals. The idea here is to allow each newspaper its own slant on purpose and to give the general public the open option of reading whichever slant they so desired. However, as the media grew more complex and radio and television came into the fore, this concept became increasingly difficult to continue.

 

In the US, the concept of a completely free and independent media was something that had been written into the Constitution itself. Our First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” We purposefully kept the hands of politicians out of the media. The idea was, keep journalistic reporting free and independent, and the masses will have the greatest chance of getting the correct information and using it accordingly. What our forefathers didn’t realize was that by keeping the press completely unregulated in its reporting, we could fall into a capitalistic trap of sensationalistic reporting for the sole purpose of selling more newspapers and earning a bigger paycheck at the end of the day. We had allowed ourselves to become the first victim of Yellow Journalism.

 

Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were two entrepreneurial newspaper owners who would forever be inextricably linked with the birth of Yellow Journalism. Both men owned newspapers, but not just any newspaper, they owned two of the most widely read and influential newspapers of the era in New York City. The Pulitzer name remains popular today because it is associated with the most prestigious award in American journalism. Yet many historians revile the award's benefactor with charges of irresponsible reporting and sensationalism. The Pulitzer name is most often linked in textbooks with that of Hearst, a Californian who assumed control of the Journal in 1895.

 

Hearst burst onto Park Row, the New York street lined with newspaper buildings, and immediately began to shake things up. Pulitzer already owned a major newspaper, The World. The ironic and tragic elements of the two men’s story cannot be ignored. The Journal, which was purchased by Hearst, was founded in 1882 by Albert Pulitzer, Joseph's brother. Albert sold the paper at a profit, and it continued with a modest circulation until Hearst moved to New York and purchased it. Surely, Hearst would have bought another paper had the Journal not been for sale, but Joseph had to live with the fact that the newspaper which became his chief competitor had originated within his own family. The two brothers became estranged over time, as Joseph considered his sibling rash and frivolous.

 

The irony does not end there; both Joseph Pulitzer and Hearst were outsiders when they came to New York. Their papers appealed to the same elements of the city that had previously been ignored by the press. Women, labor leaders, Democrats, immigrants and the poor found articles that held their interest and represented their political views.

 

Hearst's purchase of the Journal began one of the most dramatic periods of competition in journalistic history. He did not spare any expense in reaching his goal of increased circulation. He lowered the Journal's price to one cent, expanded the number of pages, and then dipped into his family's finances to support his bold moves. Much of his success came by imitation of Pulitzer. Hearst took the striking headlines of the World and made them larger and bolder. Trivial stories which compelled suspense and interest not only appeared on the front page of the Journal, they dominated it.

 

Early in 1896, Pulitzer began to pay serious attention to the newcomer. In January, Hearst enticed Richard Felton Outcault, the artist who drew the popular comic strip, "The Yellow Kid," to move to the Journal. The strip was named for the main character's colorful robes. Pulitzer's use of a color comic strip in the Sunday World was an innovation at the time. In addition to stealing Felton, Hearst managed in the same month to convince Pulitzer's entire Sunday staff to work for the Journal. The competition between Pulitzer and Hearst, each with his own brightly-colored comic strip, sealed their fates together and provided future historians with the convenient title of "yellow journalism."

 

Yellow journalism, in short, is biased opinion masquerading as objective fact. Moreover, the practice of yellow journalism involved sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting newspaper sales and exciting public opinion. This new phenomenon would get its first real test very soon. At 9:40 on the evening of 15 February, 1898, a terrible explosion on board Maine shattered the stillness in Havana Harbor. Later investigations revealed that more than five tons of powder charges for the vessel's six and ten-inch guns ignited, virtually obliterating the forward third of the ship. The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor. Most of Maine's crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters in the forward part of the ship when the explosion occurred. Two hundred and sixty-six men lost their lives as a result of the disaster: 260 died in the explosion or shortly thereafter, and six more died later from injuries.

 

Seizing upon the opportunity to capitalize on the growing spirit of American patriotism, Hearst and Pulitzer printed sensational anti-Spanish stories. They both blamed Spain directly for the sinking of the Maine. Graphic illustrations commissioned from some of the country's most-talented artists and stories written by premiere authors and journalists of the day were fodder for fueling the flames of war. Together, Hearst and Pulitzer created a frenzy among the American people by reporting the alleged brutality of the Spanish toward the Cuban rebels. (However, acts of outrage committed by the Cubans were seldom mentioned.) By the time the USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, the pro-war press had roused national sentiment to the point that President McKinley feared his political party would suffer if he did not engage in war with Spain.

 

Historically, one of the most infamous incidents with regard to the influence that yellow journalism practices had on the Spanish-American War is a short dialogue between William Randolph Hearst and his hired illustrator/Cuban correspondent, Frederick Remington. Upon his arrival in Cuba in January of 1897, Remington noticed that none of massive reported battles were actually happening. He cabled to Hearst: "Everything is quiet. There is no trouble. There will be no war. I wish to return." Supposedly, although he denied it afterwards, Hearst quickly wired back: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

 

From the very beginning of the second Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule (in 1895), both the yellow press and the "honest" press rushed to send correspondents to document the elevating level of active hostility in Cuba. Regardless, only a small number actually made it to Cuba and among the rebels; the vast majority only made it as far as Florida, or, if they were lucky, the Hotel Inglaterra in Havana, Cuba. They would usually simply make up their stories of "personal experience" or based them on slanted press releases from the Cuban Junta. The result of this was an endless supply of glorious Cuban victories in battles that never actually occurred, along with severely embellished stories of Spanish brutality and cruelty.

 

But wait there’s more.

 

Sensationalism and false reporting is just the tip of the iceberg for the American press. The American press has long been the loyal servant of corporate giants, acting more as a humongous advertising agency and policy spokesperson than as an independent investigator of current events. David Rockefeller, founder of the Trilateral Commission, in an address to a meeting of The Trilateral Commission, in June, 1991, blatantly told the audience, "We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications, whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries."

 

John Swinton, the former Chief of Staff for the New York Times, was one of New York's best loved newspapermen. Called by his peers "The Dean of his Profession", John was asked in 1953 to give a toast before the New York Press Club, and in so doing, made a monumentally important and revealing statement. He is quoted as follows:

 

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar weekly salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

 

But wait, there’s still more.

 

Ever hear of Operation Mockingbird? Operation Mockingbird is a Central Intelligence Agency operation to influence domestic and foreign media. In 1948 Frank Wisner was appointed director of the Office of Special Projects. Soon afterwards it was renamed the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC). This became the espionage and counter-intelligence branch of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wisner was told to create an organization that concentrated on "propaganda, economic warfare; preventive direct action, including sabotage, anti-sabotage, demolition and evacuation measures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-Communist elements in threatened countries of the free world."

 

Later that year Wisner established Mockingbird, a program to influence the domestic American media. Wisner recruited Philip Graham (Washington Post) to run the project within the industry. Graham himself recruited others who had worked for military intelligence during the war. By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of the New York Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles.

 

One of the most important journalists under the control of Operation Mockingbird was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers. Other journalists willing to promote the views of the CIA included many of the leading journalists of the day. The CIA also provided them with classified information to help them with their work.

 

It is clear that by the early 60s, most American media had become nothing more than a CIA/big business soundboard. The American public was being fed more and more propaganda meant to steer them in a particular direction rather than providing them with the information they need to make up their own minds. While repeating over and over that we have an inherent free press because it is in the Constitution, the media actually performed their work under the most stringent and biased rules imaginable. For example, the US public was told that we were fired upon in international waters at the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam, in 1964. Well, Toeg fans, I can assure you that it was a lie, a lie started by the Democrat President Lyndon Johnson and spoon-fed to the American public ad nauseum by the supposedly free press.

 

While working at a pharmaceutical company in Southern California, I came across a coworker thirteen years my senior. One day we began discussing the Vietnam War and his participation in it and he asked me point blank, “Ever hear of the Gulf of Tonkin.”

 

“Of course,” I replied, “It’s what started the Vietnam War.”

 

He then proceeded to tell me what happened in reality during those fateful days in early August, 1964. He was a young sailor on the destroyer USS Maddox, whose top officer was always a captain. In late July, 1964, they replaced the captain with a Commander, Lieutenant Commander Dempster M. Jackson. He told me that at the same time, tons of secret intelligence gathering material were placed on board. Then, on August 2 they approached the harbor at the Gulf of Tonkin and in my friend’s words, “Just after sunset we started making a mad dash to the harbor from several miles out. It was like we were going to attack them. Then, at the last minute, we would pull a 180 and head back out to sea. Well, after a few hours of this maneuver, they did fire one shot over our bow. Sorta like a warning shot. Other than that, nothing much happened that night.”

 

However, the story that the media reported back to the American public was far different. We were told that the US Maddox was not attacked once, but twice, that three North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked it in international waters. Democrat President Lyndon Johnson immediately called for retaliation, and the press had a frenzy that could only be described as sharks feeding in a community pool filled with old people. Ten years later, over 55,000 American soldiers lay dead, and over 2 million Vietnamese are killed. In the end, Ho Chi Minh finally achieves that which he first pleaded for from the French in 1919 at the Treaty of Versailles, Vietnam was a free and united country.

 

We have seen how since the 1950s, the US media has kept the truth from the American public as well as Joseph Goebbels at his height during the Third Reich. We have seen how since the onset of Operation Mockingbird, the CIA has ensured that Americans hear only those stories our government wishes for them to hear. We have seen how since Pulitzer and Hearst, sensationalism can rally a nation to war, even under the most falsified of pretenses.

 

And here’s the kicker.

 

In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote "in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media" -- controlling almost all of America's newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world's largest media corporation.

 

In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth.

 

From this monopoly we have sewn and reaped two false wars, millions dead, a massive assault on our Constitution, and an increase of hatred towards Americans worldwide. And I’m only talking about the years since Bush the Idiot took power illegally. The disgrace of the so-called free press in the US is nothing short of abominable.

 

What to do??

 

What do we do to keep this propaganda from blinding us now and in the future?

 

            1.     Follow the web. There are numerous sites out there with very good info. The blogosphere and independent media on the web is growing daily, and they are all feeding on each other to connect the many dots left by government. If you can, start your own site and encourage others to post their results there. A simple repository of information, links to other sites of information, can be useful.

 

             2.    When you see a mistake in government activity, report it. Hey, maybe you’re wrong. Maybe it ain’t what you think. Let the investigation bear that out. Don’t sit there and let the government ride willy-nilly over our rights. You can report it on message boards, forums, comment sections on blogs, and any of a million other methods. Always give as much detail as possible. Time and place are important. The name of the federal agency is also important.

 

Now on to preventative measures:

 

3.      The most important thing that Americans can do in the future is to NOT VOTE for ..Republicans nor Democrats. I say, throw the bums out. The whole lot of them. They are the scourge of our country, and have been for the past two centuries.

 

4.      Encourage free thinkers. Make space available for people to express their viewpoints. Even if we disagree, we get the word out for others to seize upon.

 

5.      Encourage listening of articles from other countries. The internet is home to nearly every country on Earth. The more Americans familiarize themselves with the news print from those countries as well as our own, the easier it will be for Americans to separate the wheat from the chaff.

 

6.      Reduce the Constitution to its fundamental core, then revise it to meet the requirements of the new millennium. For example, there was no such thing as radio in 1776. But we can still use the First Amendment to identify the need for free speech on radio. Now I’m not talking about corporate controlled, and CIA sanitized free speech, but real free speech. One where I have a right to express my opinion, and have it known as my opinion. The CIA will have a right to say their piece, just as long as they announce it as a CIA-sponsored piece.

 

By initiating the above, we can help prevent future generations from being as blind as we have been, and we can provide them with the tools necessary for the US to commingle with its global partners in the coming years. We don’t need to be ignorant, and if we tell our government that we are tired of it, they will eventually listen. It takes many attempts, and many aborts, but it can happen. And as far as I’m concerned, it is the only way that America can be saved.

Authors Bio:

66 year old Californian-born and bred male - I've lived in four different countries, USA, Switzerland, Mexico, Venezuela, and currently live in the Dominican Republic - speak three languages fluently, English, French, Spanish - have worked as a journalist for Empower-Sport Magazine. I am a retired Supply Chain Specialist.