The Yellow Wallpaper: The Rise And Fall Of Yellow Journalism

Pulitzer was a man of many accomplishments and few failures. However, there was one failure in particular that especially came to light during his life, and this was his founding of the practice of yellow journalism. In 1883 he purchased the New York World for $346,000 from Jay Gould, and appointed himself the manager. With Pulitzer in charge, the World’s circulation grew from 15,000 to 600,000, making it the largest newspaper in the United States. Meanwhile Joseph’s brother, Albert Pulitzer, did not get along with him. Albert owned a rival newspaper called the New York Morning Journal, which later became the New York Journal (Wikipedia “Joseph Pulitzer”). Joseph’s New York World cost two cents a paper while Albert’s Morning Journal cost one cent a copy, yet Joseph’s paper earned considerably more than his brother’s.
However, this was a poor move on Albert’s part, as the Morning Journal lost at least half of its audience virtually overnight. Fate was on Albert’s side, and Hearst swooped in at the last second and purchased the Morning Journal from Albert for $400,000 in 1895 (Whyte INSERT PAGE #). Pulitzer and Hearst then embarked on a circulation war, and during this Pulitzer founded the practice of yellow journalism (Wikipedia “Joseph Pulitzer). Yellow journalism was a type of journalism presenting little or no legitimate or well-researched news and instead used attention-grabbing headlines to sell more newspapers. Tactics of yellow journalism included exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism (Wikipedia “Yellow Journalism”).f The significance of Pulitzer’s founding of the practice of yellow journalism was that he created a technique encouraging the duplicity of the public that is still popularly used today, which is why this action of his is to be regarded as a