The Birth of Yellow Journalism

The Spanish–American War (April–August 1898) is considered to be both a turning point in the history of propaganda and the beginning of the practice of yellow journalism.

It was the first conflict in which military action was precipitated by media involvement. The war grew out of U.S. interest in a fight for revolution between the Spanish military and citizens of their Cuban colony. American newspapers fanned the flames of interest in the war by fabricating atrocities which justified intervention in a number of Spanish colonies worldwide.

Several forces within the United States were pushing for a war with Spain. Their tactics were wide-ranging and their goal was to engage the opinion of the American people in any way possible. Men such as William Hearst, the owner of The New York Journal was involved in a circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and saw the conflict as a way to sell papers. Many newspapers ran articles of a sensationalist nature and sent correspondents to Cuba to cover the war. Correspondents had to evade Spanish Authorities; usually they were unable to get reliable news and relied heavily on informants for their stories. Many stories were derived from second or third hand accounts and were either elaborated, misrepresented or completely fabricated by journalists to enhance their dramatic effect.

Both Hearst and Pulitzer published images of Spanish troops placing Cubans into concentration camps where they were suffered and died from disease and hunger. The term “Yellow Journalism,” which was derived from the name of "The Yellow Kid" comic strip in the Journal, was used to refer to this style of sensationalized newspaper articles. The American public purchased more newspapers because of this form of writing, and this strongly encouraged Hearst and Pulitzer’s newspapers to write more sensationalized stories.  Some of the most sensationalized articles concerned “Butcher Weyler” and his reconcentration policies, and the Cuban Insurrection. Circulation continued to soar as the Journal reported that an American civilian was imprisoned without a trial and stating that no American was safe in Cuba as long as Weyler was in charge. Another major  article that enraged the American public was written by one of Hearst's reporters,  Richard Harding Davis,  who came upon the story while on his way back from Cuba.  The reporter learned of the story of Senorita Clemencia Arango.  Arango was forced out of Cuba for helping the rebels, and was supposedly strip-searched by Spanish detectives.  This angered the Victorian ideals of the American public even though the story was found to be in error

Hearst played a huge part in arousing the public’s intention to go to war with Spain. This activity reached its zenith after several years of articles concerning the situation in Cuba, Hearst ran a series of articles blaming the Spanish for the sinking of the MAINE with a mine. Hearst’s powerful articles pushed many Americans towards war with Spain. Because of his leading role in inciting the war, Hearst was nicknamed the “Father of Yellow Journalism.”

Why do I give you the history of yellow journalism? It is now the mainstay of news reporting. News outlets chasing advertising dollar have almost forgot the meaning of fair and even reporting. Fair and even reporting does not sell advertising. Sensationalism does. News outlets fan the flames of controversy in an attempt to boost readership. Ad rates are based on readership rates. Readers read, dollars come in. They really don't care about the overall affect on society. They rationalize that in a free press era the reader will get a fair and even story by reading multiple accounts from multiple sources. Except that people don't do that. They are sound bite addicts. We spend very little time checking the facts.

All you have to do it read the comments section of any article and you see that many of the readers didn't even comprehend the article they just read, more or less research it further. The media says that's our problem not theirs.

Folks, yellow journalism is alive and well. Do not believe what you read. Do not react to sensationalism. Small niches of society have managed to make great gains by using the media to project themselves as main stream. We need to seek the truth before we react. We no longer can rely on the media to present anything even close to resembling the truth.

Moving Down that Slipery Slope

I wrote a short blog on how we as a nation, in an effort to help those less fortunate then ourselves have created an environment that will eventually enslave the lower class.  Hard truths are hard truths. It is not our nature to want to hear them. We prefer to gather information that supports our point of view, not challenge it. One of the roles of the Reticular Activating System within our brain is specifically designed to ferret out those sources of information that move us from internal conflict to peace.

Even agnostic George Holyoake's in his 1896 publication English Secularism defined secularism as: That it is good to do good. Whether there be other good or not, the good of the present life is good, and it is good to seek that good. So as Americans we strive to do what we feel is in the good.

I ran across an interesting whitepaper entitled "The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerization ", September 2013, Oxford University Engineering and Science Department. It's over seventy pages, but it boils down to the graphs below:

The population at the greatest risk of having their jobs replaced by automation are the low wage, low skill jobs represented by the lower class. If we add to this our propensity to compensate for low income by providing financial support through government programs, we are creating a class of people held in bondage. They just simply don't have the where with all to climb out of the dependance based inviroment they find themselves in. They have to find employment that catapults them from lower class to middle class in one fell swoop.

The problem is that they may find that the normal intermediary steps required to improve their financial life are punitive. They may actually have to decrease their standard of living, now at the bottom of the American dream, before they can move upward. They have to give up government subsidies, start paying taxes and still have enough income to maintain their lowly standard of living. Tough love...

Kerby Anderson talks about the ten stages in the decline of a nation. They are (with my interpretation):

1. Spiritual Faith (our founding fathers)

2. Great Courage (American Revolution)

3. Birth of Liberty (The Constitution)

4. Abundance (World leadership)

5. Selfishness (My specific wants and needs rule my decisions)

6. Complacency (sometimes under the guise of Tolerance)

7. Apathy

8. Moral Decay

9. Dependence

10. Bondage

I stopped notating after number six because I am not sure exactly where we are as a nation. We clearly have moved into, and perhaps beyond selfishness. Have we become complacent? It is hard to say. We seem to be broadening the definition of acceptable behavior. States now run the gambling concession through lotteries. States have also started to legalize drug use. Is this because we selfishly feel that we should not be stopped from doing what pleases us, or are we just too complacent to stop some fringe niche group from eroding our sensibilities. 

Twenty, thirty or fourty years from now, where will we be? Will we be a nation that has a substantial population that is dependent on the government to the point that they are incapable of taking care of themselves. Will those who actively contribute to the cofferes of the government be able to contribute enough? Will we be overtaken by Stage 3 or Stage 4 countries, some of which have population three and four times ours.

If this does happen.... will we all slip into bondage because we do not have the resources to maintain our independence? Will their economic engines run ours?

Everyone needs a miracle from time to time.

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

We all face times of desperate need. All of us at one time or another in our lives “need” a miracle. It might be saving our job/business depends on closing a business deal. It might be that we have a loved one with a medical emergency. But at some point we recognize that we can’t do it alone and “need” intervention. Most of us look for a “parting-the-Red Sea” type of miracle. We’re looking for that big, immediate, in-your-face solution to our problem. I know some of us can point to big “parting-the-Red Sea” miracles and I believe they exist, but for the most part I think if we critically looked at even those they would follow this process. It is just that we obeyed so naturally that we don’t see our involvement. What is the real pragmatic expectation to answered prayer? There are six points I’d like to make:

1. God knew the need before we asked for help 
2. God could have solved the problem immediately without the help of other
3. God expects us to do what we can, he expects obedience 
4. God uses resource that we have 
5.  God does what we can’t
6.  Here is the hard part, the final solution always takes longer then we want, requires obedience even when we don’t understand the required task and is more painful than we would like.

I have listed five Biblical miracles at the end to use as examples. They are just five of many, but they demonstrate the principles well. They all share the six points above. 

God knew the need before we asked for help

We are not going to surprise God with our need. Psalms 139:4 “Even before the words are on my tongue, you know it all together.” We are not bringing Him a perplexing problem that He needs to contemplate. Our problems are unique and immediate to us. Because we do not see the future, our need is for a quick solution. When we don’t get it we believe either God doesn’t know, doesn’t care or can’t help. The timing is a well thought out decision by God based on his plans for us.

God could have solved the problem immediately without the help of others

In Genesis 1 we learned that God created the heavens and the earth. There is nothing He cannot do without our intervention. Genesis 22:18 says "And through your descendants all the nations of the earth will be blessed—all because you have obeyed me." He wants to bless us by getting us involved. The first part of the blessing is that He wants us to work together. He wants a relationship with us. He wants us to trust and obey. He could have simply made the five thousand full. Or made the bridal party happy with what they had, or wiped out the debt of the widow. He wants us to experience the joy of working with him.

God expects us to do what we can, he expects obedience

You can’t steer a stationary ship, it requires movement. Obedience is movement. Many times we pray for a solution and wait for the answer. God will send us “nudges” as a call to action. He will not always show us an immediate result when we obey. The size of the blessing can be determined by our actions. In both the Water to Wine miracle and the Widow’s Olive Jar miracle, the size of the blessing was determined by the number of vessels the people gathered. Peter could have never walked on water if he hadn’t first gotten out of the boat. The cripple went to great effort to have his friends carry him to Jesus, lift him to the roof and dig a hole into which they could lower him. The first step is obedience. Obedience requires movement.

God uses resource that we have

This is the first miracle, we have everything we need. Generally we expect that the solution of the problem centers on the fact that we can’t get what we need, which presupposes that we don’t already have it. The cripple had friends that were willing to help. The widow had olive oil, the wedding guests had water jugs, and the 5,000 had five fish. It seldom seems like we have enough, so we overlook what we have. Whether it is money, friends, intelligence, energy, or experience, we have resources that God will use. We need to take the time to understand the resources available to us and we need to be willing to apply them even when they seem lacking.

God does what we can’t

He is where the magic happens. As the servants ladled out the water it turned to wine. As the widow poured out olive oil from her jar it kept filling jars until she was out of jars. As the five thousand took pieces of fish and bread, there kept being more fish and bread. The cripple picked up his mat and walked. You don’t really think Peter could walk on water without God’s help. This is the part of the miracle we see and expect. The blessing is a result of our obedience; we kind of forget that part. 

The Hard Part

The final solution always takes longer then we want, requires obedience even when we don’t understand the required task and is more painful than we would like. Sorry I wish I could say more, but this is it. We have expectations that if we do what God wants, he will do what we want. Sorry, it’s not a trade. He knows so much more than we do. He knows what we want and need. He can see the future implications to all actions. We have a vision of our future based on limited knowledge. He has perfect knowledge. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Test this theory by reading about these five miracles in the bible:

1. Walking on Water (Mathew 14: 22 – 33)
2. Water to Wine (John 2: 1 – 11)
3. Widow trying to save her children from indenture (2 Kings 4:1 – 7) 
4.   Feeding the five thousand (Matthew 14: 13 – 21)
5. Cripple who is passed through the roof (Luke 5: 17 – 21) “get your hands dirty digging through the roof kind of faith”