Note 342:1 — Chapter XII

Englishmen often ask the meaning of the phrase "the yellow press." The history of it is as follows: In 1895, Mr. W. R. Hearst, having had experience as a journalist in California, purchased the New York Journal, which was at the time a more or less unsuccessful publication, and, spending money lavishly, converted it into the most enterprising, as well as the most sensational, paper that New York or any other American city had ever seen. In catering to the prejudices of the mass of the people, he invaded the province of the New York World. In the "war" between the two which followed, one began and the other immediately adopted the plan of using yellow ink in the printing of certain cartoons (or pictures of the Ally Sloper type) with which they adorned certain pages of their Sunday editions especially. The term "yellow press" was applied at first only to those two papers, but soon extended to include other publications which copied their general style. The yellow ink was, I believe, actually first employed by the World; but the Journal was the aggressor in the fight and in most particulars it was that paper which set the pace, and it, or Mr. Hearst, rightly bears the responsibility for the creation of yellow journalism.