W. Joseph Campbell

, , , , ,

Hearst, war, and the international appeal of media myths

In 1897, Debunking, Furnish the war, Media myths, Spanish-American War, Yellow Journalism on July 18, 2010 at 3:24 pm

I wrote the other day about the international appeal of prominent media-driven myths, an observation that was reconfirmed yesterday in the Correio do Brasil.

The Correio item recounted the purported exchange of telegrams between the artist Frederic Remington and newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, in which Hearst supposedly declared:

“You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.”

Remington at the time was in Cuba, on assignment for Hearst’s New York Journal to draw illustrations of the rebellion against Spanish colonial rule.

The exchange, if it took place, would have been in January 1897, during Remington’s six-day visit to the island. The anecdote was first recounted in 1901 by James Creelman, a bluff, cigar-chomping journalist who was neither with Hearst nor Remington in early 1897; he was in Europe at the time of the purported exchange, and never explained how he learned of it.

The anecdote Creelman told, though, is rich and delicious, suggesting the malign potential of media power as well as Hearst’s meddling ways. The anecdote often is cited in support of the dubious claim that Hearst and his yellow press fomented the Spanish-American War in 1898.

Trouble is, the “furnish the war” tale is almost certainly apocryphal.

As I discuss in Getting It Wrong, my new book debunking 10 media-driven myths, the reasons for doubting the anecdote are many and include the fact that the purported telegram containing Hearst’s vow has never surfaced; Hearst, himself, denied having sent such a message, and Remington apparently never discussed such an exchange.

Hearst’s purported message, moreover, is incongruous and illogical on its face: It would have made no sense for Hearst to have pledged to “furnish the war” because war–the Cuban rebellion against Spanish rule–was the very reason he sent the artist to Cuba in the first place.

I also note in Getting It Wrong that Remington’s work from Cuba further serves to impugn the anecdote. His sketches for Hearst’s Journal depicted unmistakable (if unremarkable) scenes of rebellion.

His work showed a scouting party of Spanish cavalry with rifles at the ready; a cluster of Cuban non-combatant captives being herded into Spanish lines; a scruffy Cuban rebel kneeling to fire at a small Spanish fort, and a knot of Spanish soldiers dressing a comrade’s wounded leg.

The sketches appeared in the Journal beneath headlines such as “Cuban War Sketches Gathered in the Field by Frederic Remington” and “Frederic Remington Sketches A Familiar Incident of the Cuban War.”

After his return to the United States, Remington wrote a letter to the Journal’s keenest rival, the New York World, in which he disparaged the Spanish colonial regime as a “woman-killing outfit down there in Cuba.”

As I write in Getting It Wrong, “Remington’s sketches and correspondence … leave no doubt that he had seen a good deal of war-related disruption in Cuba.”

In addition, I write, “there was no chance that telegrams such as those Creelman described would have flowed freely between Remington in Havana and Hearst in New York. Spanish control of the cable traffic in Havana was too vigilant and severe to have allowed such an exchange to have gone unnoticed and unremarked upon.

“A vow such as Hearst’s to ‘furnish the war’ surely would have been intercepted and publicized by Spanish authorities as a clear-cut example of Yankee meddling in Cuba.”

That element–because it reputedly suggests Yankee meddling–surely helps explain why the Remington-Hearst anecdote exerts appeal beyond the United States, especially in Latin America.

The anecdote, in addition, is broadly appealing in its simplicity and deliciousness.

Indeed, it is almost too delicious to check out.

WJC

Related:

  1. […] commentary invoked the well-known and often-repeated anecdote about William Randolph Hearst’s purported vow to “furnish the war” with Spain, […]

    ‘Famously rumored’: Hearst and his reputed vow « Media Myth Alert 22 July 2010 at 9am

  2. […] else to explain the recent sightings in the news, in the United States and abroad, of William Randolph Hearst’s mythical vow to “furnish the war” with […]

    Silly season arrives? ‘Furnish the war’ sightings suggest as much « Media Myth Alert 24 July 2010 at 10am

  3. […] In Uncategorized on July 26, 2010 at 6:38 pm I’m amazed how international news media love to indulge in, and inevitably mangle, some of American journalism’s best-known media myths. Cronkite in […]

    Mangling the ‘Cronkite Moment’ « Media Myth Alert 26 July 2010 at 6pm

  4. […] periodically noted at MediaMythAlert how media-driven myths, those dubious and improbable tales about the American […]

    Long reach of the ‘Cronkite Moment’ « Media Myth Alert 1 August 2010 at 9am

  5. […] Newspapers on August 10, 2010 at 11:34 am I’ve written from time to time about the striking international appeal of media-driven myths, those dubious and improbable tales about the news media that masquerade as […]

    The wide appeal of the bra-burning meme « Media Myth Alert 10 August 2010 at 11am

  6. […] Hearst, war, and the international appeal of media myths […]

    1897 flashback: Committing ‘jail-breaking journalism’ « Media Myth Alert 4 October 2010 at 7am

  7. […] William Randolph Hearst is the bogeyman of American journalism, a timeless representation of what’s malign and dubious about the news media. […]

    Hearst, agenda-setting, and war « Media Myth Alert 12 October 2010 at 9am

  8. […] “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war.” He supposedly was referring to war with Spain in the late 19th […]

    IBD invokes Hearst myth of ‘furnish the war’ « Media Myth Alert 21 October 2010 at 5pm

  9. […] Hearst stepped forward to organize what the Journal called a “great carnival,” a celebration replete with “volcanoes of fireworks and floods of pulse-quickening music,” all centered around City Hall Park, near what then was Newspaper Row. […]

    Gotham’s exceptional New Year’s Eve: 1897 « Media Myth Alert 31 December 2010 at 7am

  10. […] I’ve discussed from time to time at Media Myth Alert how media-driven myths about the U.S. news media have a way of traveling well and finding expression in news outlets overseas. […]

    Murrow, Cronkite myths cited in Poland’s top paper « Media Myth Alert 4 January 2011 at 10am

  11. […] Hearst, war, and the international appeal of media myths […]

    Fact-checking WaPo columnist on the ‘McKinley moment’ « Media Myth Alert 12 January 2011 at 7am

  12. […] It corresponds well to the image of Hearst the war-monger, the unscrupulous newspaper published who fomented the Spanish-American War in […]

    The ‘anniversary’ of a media myth: ‘I’ll furnish the war’ « Media Myth Alert 13 January 2011 at 7am

  13. […] journalism” also finds expression in international contexts, often emerging, for example, as a complaint about press performance in India. Wardman: Coined […]

    NYTimes practices ‘yellow journalism’? How so? « Media Myth Alert 14 January 2011 at 8am

  14. […] the end, to indict Hearst and the yellow press for instigating the Spanish-American War, is I wrote in Yellow Journalism, […]

    Finding hints of Hearst in the Tucson aftermath? What a stretch « Media Myth Alert 15 January 2011 at 11am

  15. […] Print,” Ochs clearly sought to distance the Times from the yellow press of William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Their flamboyant newspapers dominated New York City’s media landscape in […]

    114 years on the front page « Media Myth Alert 9 February 2011 at 7am

  16. […] It would have made no sense for Hearst to vow to “furnish the war.” […]

    ‘Furnish the war’ finds a place in sports « Media Myth Alert 28 February 2011 at 8am

  17. […] Anyone who read U.S. newspapers in early 1897 “would have been well aware,” I write, “that Cuba was a theater of a nasty war,” which gave rise in April 1898 to the Spanish-American War. […]

    Fact-checking ‘Mother Jones’: A rare two-fer « Media Myth Alert 26 April 2011 at 7am

  18. […] From time to time at Media Myth Alert, I’ve noted how American media myths have been embraced with gusto by news outlets overseas. […]

    Perceptive observations about Woodward, Bernstein, media power « Media Myth Alert 9 May 2011 at 5am

  19. […] Anyone reading U.S. newspapers in early 1897 “would have been well aware,” I write, “that Cuba was a theater of a nasty war,” which gave rise in April 1898 to the Spanish-American War. […]

    As if Hearst were ‘back with us,’ vowing to ‘furnish the war’ « Media Myth Alert 10 May 2011 at 9am

  20. […] a recent Roads Scholar (formerly ElderHostel) program at which I spoke about media myths, a participant offered a variation on “junk food of […]

    Media myths, the ‘comfort food’ of journalism « Media Myth Alert 25 May 2011 at 4am

  21. […] Hearst, war, and the international appeal of media myths […]

    Wrong-headed history: Yellow press stampeded U.S. to war « Media Myth Alert 21 June 2011 at 9am

  22. […] Hearst, war, and the international appeal of media myths […]

    Yellow journalism ‘brought about Spanish-American War’? But how? « Media Myth Alert 13 July 2011 at 8am

  23. […] And Remington’s trip to Cuba came in January 1897 — more than 15 months before the start of the Spanish-American War. […]

    ‘Kane’ at 70: ‘More relevant than ever’? « Media Myth Alert 10 September 2011 at 9am

  24. […] The battle was a thoroughly unexpected development in a conflict fought over Spain’s harsh rule of Cuba, a conflict often but inaccurately blamed on the yellow press of William Randolph Hearst. […]

    Those ‘warmongering’ papers of William Randolph Hearst « Media Myth Alert 1 May 2012 at 5am

  25. […] and misleading image of Hearst as war-monger, as the unscrupulous newspaper publisher who fomented the Spanish-American […]

    Hearst, Garrison Keillor, and ‘furnish the war': Celebrities and media myths | Media Myth Alert 29 April 2015 at 8am

  26. […] Jorge Ramos, media-myth-teller (posted September 5): The international reach of media-driven myths was best defined in 2015 when Jorge Ramos, the self-important anchorman for […]

    Taking stock: Top mythbusting posts of 2015 | Media Myth Alert 29 December 2015 at 11am

  27. […] Hearst, war, and the international appeal of media myths […]

    An international dimension to prominent media myths | Media Myth Alert 6 January 2021 at 10pm

Comments are closed.

%d bloggers like this: