Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
On the Great Highway by James Creelman.
This is a fun read – a picture of foreign reporting at the end of the 19th century. Creelman wrote for Pulitzer and Hearst. He had adventures, stirred things up and told wonderful stories. Hearst, it appears, sent him to Haiti, where he proposed to the president that his country join the US. This book contains the wonderful canard about Hearst at the end of the 19th century – that he had sent the artist Frederic Remington to Cuba and Remington reported by telegram that there was no war to cover. Hearst is supposed to have said: ‘You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.’ Hearst never said any such thing. Yellow journalism, as it was called, brought about some good in terms of drawing attention to social ills. But it also resulted in a great deal of entertaining rubbish, such as the Remington story.
What is yellow journalism?
Well, Pulitzer started this Richard F Outcault comic strip in the 1890s called ‘Hogan’s Alley’. The leading character was an urchin with slightly Asian features, jug ears, and a toothy grin – and plenty of high-jinks. Outcault dressed ‘The Yellow Kid’ in a yellow gown. Hearst eventually lured Outcault away from Pulitzer. The crazed-looking urchin became the symbol of the sensational press and gave it its ‘yellow’ name.
Read full interview
Former journalist John Maxwell Hamilton is Dean and Hopkins P Breazeale Professor at the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. In the course of his career Hamilton has had assignments in more than 50 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. He has overseen nuclear non-proliferation issues for the House Foreign Affairs Committee, advised the head of the US aid programme in Asia during the Carter administration, and managed a World Bank public affairs programme to educate Americans about economic development. His most recent book, Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Newsgathering Abroad, won the Goldsmith Prize. Foreign reporting, he says, is much less swashbuckling now and correspondents are on a shorter leash. ‘They used to be left alone to find and write the stories they wanted to write – they were the experts. But now they can be in touch with the editor ten times a day on a big story. There was less tampering with copy in those days. Now the correspondents are less independent and really less colourful generally.'
