The yellow press period in American journalism history has produced many powerful and enduring myths-almost none of them true. This study explores these legends, presenting extensive evidence that:

The yellow press did not foment-could not have fomented-the Spanish-American War in 1898, contrary of the arguments of many media historians.

The famous exchange of telegrams between the artist Frederic Remington and newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst-in which Hearst is said to have vowed to furnish the war with Spain-almost certainly never took place.

The readership of the...

This offers a detailed and long-awaited reassessment of one of the most maligned periods in American journalism the era of the yellow press. The study challenges and dismantles several prominent myths about the genre, finding that the yellow press did not foment could not have fomented the Spanish-American War in 1898, contrary to the arguments of many media historians. The study presents extensive evidence showing that the famous exchange of telegrams between the artist Frederic Remington and newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst in which Hearst is said to have vowed to furnish the...

The Year that Defined American Journalism explores the succession of remarkable and decisive moments in American journalism during 1897 - a year of significant transition that helped redefine the profession and shape its modern contours. This defining year featured a momentous clash of paradigms pitting the activism of William Randolph Hearst's participatory 'journalism of action' against the detached, fact-based antithesis of activist journalism, as represented by Adolph Ochs of the New York Times, and an eccentric experiment in literary journalism pursued by Lincoln...

The Year that Defined American Journalism explores the succession of remarkable and decisive moments in American journalism during 1897 - a year of significant transition that helped redefine the profession and shape its modern contours. This defining year featured a momentous clash of paradigms pitting the activism of William Randolph Hearst's participatory 'journalism of action' against the detached, fact-based antithesis of activist journalism, as represented by Adolph Ochs of the New York Times, and an eccentric experiment in literary journalism pursued by Lincoln...

W. Joseph Campbell, longtime newspaper and wire service journalist, examines the origins and development of the ethos of independent journalism in two former single-party states in francophone West Africa--Benin and Cote d'Ivoire. In both countries since the late 1980s and early 1990s, a diverse and outspoken press, free of direct state control, has emerged and taken hold.

Campbell shows how the ethos of independent journalism can emerge from disparate sources and dissimilar historical legacies, despite prolonged periods of repression and autocratic rule. In Benin, the ethos of...