The Yellow Wars By J.p. Lawrence
The next great conflict in American journalism occurredbefore the dawn of the 20th century. Its battleground was the streets of NewYork. Its generals were Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, and AdolphOchs.
The newspaper wars of the 1890s were the heyday of yellowjournalism, and it was also the beginning of the New York Time’s ascent. Thesepoints are related.
The 1890s were the beginning of a new “moral war with TheNew York Times, the Press and the Sun on one side, and the World and the Heraldon the other. (Schudson 112). The Times and its ilk subscribed to a particularinformational model of what a newspaper out to convey; the World and the Heraldoccupied another.
The results of this clash resulted in a refined publicconception of what to expect from a newspaper. The struggle would affect hownewspapers saw themselves for decades to come.