AEJMC, the journalism educators organization, announced yesterday the 50 top articles to have appeared in its flagship journal — and among the selections was “Not Likely Sent,” my 2000 myth-busting study about William Randolph Hearst and his purported vow to “furnish the war” with Spain.
Hearst
“Not Likely Sent” was published in the summer 2000 issue of the peer-reviewed Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.
The article challenged as implausible the often-retold anecdote about Hearst’s supposed exchange of telegrams with the artist Frederic Remington, in which Hearst is said to have declared:
“You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war.”
Remington at the time of purported exchange was in Cuba, on assignment for Hearst’s New York Journal. Remington spent six days on the island in January 1897, preparing sketches to illustrate aspects of the Cuban insurrection against Spain’s colonial rule.
Among the reasons for dismissing the famous anecdote — which has been invoked over the decades by scores of journalists and historians — is Hearst’s denial, and the implausibility of the supposed exchange.
That is, Spanish censors who controlled all incoming and outgoing telegraphic traffic surely would have intercepted and called attention to Hearst’s message to Remington, had it been sent.
I also pointed out in “Not Likely Sent” that Hearst’s supposed vow ran counter “to the Journal‘s editorial positions in January 1897. The newspaper in editorials at the time expected the collapse of the Spanish war effort and resulting independence for Cuban insurgents. The Journal was neither anticipating nor campaigning for U.S. military intervention to end the conflict.”
The Cuban rebellion, however, ground on and became a stalemate. In April 1898, the United States entered the conflict, principally to end a human rights disaster that was festering in Cuba.
The editor of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Daniel Riffe, said in a statement that selecting the journal’s top 50 articles was “a piece of research in itself.” The process included tapping the advice of his predecessors as editor, as well as consulting citation guides and Google Scholar.
“I finally assembled a list of 50 articles that I hope our members agree have been influential in our field,” Riffe said.
The top 50 articles were selected and announced as part of the centennial celebration of AEJMC — the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.
Predecessor titles of Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly were Journalism Quarterly and The Journalism Bulletin.
An elaboration of “Not Likely Sent” appeared as a chapter in my 2001 book, Yellow Journalism: Puncturing the Myths, Defining the Legacies. Separately, a chapter in my latest book, Getting It Wrong, described how Hearst’s purported vow came to be embedded in the lore of American journalism.
Despite the repeated debunkings, however, the anecdote about “furnish the war” lives on — a timeless, pithy, and easily recalled example of the news media at their supposed worst.
As I wrote in the article:
“The Remington-Hearst anecdote is indeed ‘a beautiful story,’ a succinct and delicious tale, one rich in hubris and in swaggering recklessness. It is, however, a story altogether dubious and misleading.
“It suggests a power that the press, including Hearst’s Journal, did not possess, that of propelling the country into a war that it did not want.”
Recent or related:
- Renewing the Hearst-Remington association in a $200,000 grant
- Blogging about journalism history: Why, and why bother
- As if Hearst ‘were back with us,’ vowing to ‘furnish the war’
- The ‘anniversary’ of a media myth: ‘I’ll furnish the war’
- ‘War Lovers’: A myth-indulging disappointment
- James Fallows and ‘furnish the war’: Indulging in a media myth
- Juan Williams’ new book repeats Spanish-American War myth
- In myth, a truism: Hearst’s vow ‘will forever live on’
- ‘Famously rumored’: Hearst and his reputed vow
- 10 weeks on: Still no word from WaPo about apparent digital scrubbing of Lynch articles
- Invoking media myths to score points
- Getting It Wrong goes on Q-and-A
Media Myth Alert 
[…] perfect to be true — not unlike, say, William Randolph Hearst’s purported vow to “furnish the war” with Spain or Lyndon B. Johnson’s supposed epiphany on the Vietnam War: “If […]
[…] also sounds a bit too perfect — not unlike, say, William Randolph Hearst’s purported vow to “furnish the war” with Spain or Lyndon B. Johnson’s supposed epiphany on the Vietnam War: “If I’ve lost […]