The study “Discovering the Arizona Republican Newspaper, 1890-1900: Yellow Journalism in America’s Territorial Press” by Patti Piburn from College of Liberal Arts, California Polytechnic State University studied an understudied aspect of yellow journalism usually associated with Eastern United States – yellow journalism in the territorial frontier of Arizona.
The history of yellow journalism stems from the circulation battle between Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World, and William Hearst, when he bought the New York Journal in 1895. Its roots can be traced even further to penny press in the 1830s.
Yellow journalism, in journalistic research and popular articles, has been often, especially early on, described as embodying the worst aspects of journalism. It can be defined as sensationalistic presentation, support of the common folk, and is designed to attract readership and advertisement revenue. Non-yellow journalism, such as the one practiced by New York Times, has been labeled “conservative” – not referring to the political stance but the traditional form of reporting.
A common misconception about the term “yellow” is that it would have originated from the Yellow Kid cartoon and Pulitzer’s and Hearst’s skirmish over it, but W. Joseph Campbell has shown that it originated after it and was in reference to new type of journalism – it was invented as a broad slur to so-called yellow journals in New York.
Traditionally, researchers have dismissed the idea that territorial newspapers could fall in the rubric of yellow journalism, considering them to be “small, primitive news sheets, grayed with small type”, the finding that Arizona Republican emulated the journals of Pulitzer and Hearst is interesting.
The first issue of Arizona Republican was printed in May 19, 1890, and it was founded by Governor Lewis Wolfley and a group of Republican territorial officials. Close to that time (1889), the population of Phoenix was only 3,152 and that of the entire Maricopa County was 10,986. There were already two papers in the area, the Gazette and Herald.
Despite struggling at first, the paper boasted a phenomenal growth in circulation in the first three months, and soon, it eclipsed the Gazette and Herald. Charles C. Randolph was hired in 1896 to run the newspaper, and instituted many changes to make the paper resemble the publications of Pulitzer and Hearst. There was a daily illustration on the front page, and society reports on gossip from the east.
The Republican and Randolph saw the coming war with Spain as an opportunity and expanded the war content and doubled the telegraph service and arranged special raports, thus further increasing circulation as there was a demand for such coverage. Also, the front-page layout was flexible – resembling the layout in big city yellow journals.
The Arizona Republican was also, in the words of the author researching it, remarkably “self-congratulatory”, publishing in its editorials information about the growth of circulation and reach and advertising effectiveness. And it soon became even more boastful.
One of its ‘yellow’ characteristics was also the coverage of sensationalistic issues such as Cordelia Botkin’s trial in San Francisco, where the paper painted a picture of her as a “wayward sinner”. One thing the Arizona Republican also did even before Randolph was to mix pseudo-science with other coverage. Scandal and gossip were also ubiquitous.
In conclusion, the study illustrates the need to study yellow journalism beyond Eastern States, and it shows that other papers in the States practiced varying degrees of yellow journalism.
The article “Discovering the Arizona Republican Newspaper, 1890-1900: Yellow Journalism in America’s Territorial Press” by Patti Piburn is in American Journalism. (Free abstract).
Picture: Cactus in Arizona, by Cody Doherty
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