Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Purple-Missile6907 t1_jcswihe wrote

Reply to comment by bikelifer in Weekly History Questions Thread. by AutoModerator

Sure. William Randolph Hearst and the New York Journal said that the USS Maine was blown up by Spain, based off of false rumor. This made US citizens mad, and drove public support for a war against Spain. So-lies made by the media helped fuel a national desire for war.

10

quantdave t1_jct9yac wrote

... and four months earlier came the Journal's part in breaking Evangelina Cisneros out of jail as the innocent victim of a Spanish officer's advances. Her account broadly supports the paper's case (though not necessarily the more lurid accounts) , but Hearst would doubtless have been mortified by her Havana military funeral 72 years later as a heroine of the independence struggle.

4

Purple-Missile6907 t1_jcswl2e wrote

You also have a more realistic side of it. Journalists taking photos of what was going on in Cuba drove up support in the US against Spain. So-coverage of abuse made Spain look bad, built empathy for the Cuban rebels.

2