Blog #2: The New York Journal (EOTO)

 THE HISTORY OF THE NEW YORK JOURNAL AMERICAN 📰

 The New York Journal American was a daily newspaper published in NYC from 1937 to 1966. William Randolph Hearst bought the New York Journal in 1895 when he found a way to hire his rival Pulitzers staff from the Sunday newspaper with the promise of giving them a raise. Hearst and Pulitzer went back and forth trying to win over the staff until Hearst made an offer they could not turn down.

The rivalry between Hearst and Pulitzer grew even bigger when they both decided to publish cartoons based on the “Yellow Kid” Character from Richard Felton Outcault’s comics

 The Journal was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst. The New York American was originally the New York Journal, and in 1901 it was renamed American, which was the morning paper. Soon after came the New York Evening Journal which was an afternoon paper. Both papers were published by Hearst and in 1937, the American and the Evening Journal merged. 

The New York Journal was known for its use of graphics and illustrations and was the most successful American newspaper of the era. The Journal was the earliest American newspaper that gave published credit to its reporters, columnists, editors, writers, cartoonists, and photographers.

The New York Journal was an example of Yellow Journalism. This is the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase publication. 

Through yellow journalism, newspapers competed for readers through bold headlines, illustrations, and activist journalism. The term was coined in the 1890s to describe the tactics employed in the competition between the two most popular NYC newspapers, the New York Journal, and the New York World. 

Due to the many illustrations, colour magazine sections, headlines, articles on crime and pseudoscientific topics, and reducing the price of the paper to only one cent the journal soon began to gain a significant amount of recognition.

The purpose of the New York Journal was to publish, and report exaggerated stories and editorials about the public tensions between the United States and Spain, which eventually triggered a war over Cuba by the sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana influenced events like the Spanish American War.

While inciting the war with the publications of his paper, Hearst made a statement to his illustrator came up with a quote that became very popular which was “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war. 

Although the Journal became very popular, this didn’t keep the paper in business. In 1966 the paper ceased publication and donated all the prints used for publication to the University of Texas at Austin in 1968.