Yellow Journalism is a term used for the use of negligent and flamboyant newspaper reporting, without regard to facts. With yellow journalism the truth is usually misrepresented or concealed, more often than not, there may be no truth to the story at all. In its infancy, the term yellow journalism was used to describe the writing tactics used by William Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. These men used yellow journalism to exaggerate and misguide the American public on happenings in Cuba; such reporting may have even sparked the Spanish-American war. Yellow journalism during the Spanish American war was not just one thing, but, encompasses the Yellow Kid, the big journalist war between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph, and many different types of propaganda.
The Yellow Kid by Richard Felton Outcault (1863-1928) is generally held to be the character that gave birth to American comic strips. ... The Yellow Kid was not a comic strip; rather he appeared as a character in a series of large single panel color comic illustrations in the New York World with the more or less continuous running title Hogans Alley. ...
A prototype Yellow Kid appeared in Outcaults "Feudal Pride in Hogans Alley" published in Truth June 2, 1894. ... On January 5, 1896 the Kid was center stage in a yellow nightshirt and thereafter became the focus of each panel.
The Yellow Kid became the mainstay of the Worlds comic supplement during 1896, but in mid October Outcault moved his strip from the World to William Randolph Hearsts New York Journal. ... Beginning October 25, 1896 the Kid also began to appear in an occasional comic strip like series of panels under the running title of "The Yellow Kid," which was Outcaults first use of that name in a comic supplement. ... The last Yellow Kid comic feature appeared in the Journal January 23, 1898. Outcault then returned to the World, producing a series of "Hogans Alley"-like panels featuring an African-American character.
Outcaults shift of the Yellow Kid from the World to the Journal raised issues of copyright. The World then hired George Luks to continue drawing the yellow kid for their newspaper. ... Outcault did however secure protection for the title "The Yellow Kid."
Two minor controversies have marked the history of the Yellow Kid. Until the late 1980s accounts of the origins of comic strips generally accepted that the Yellow Kids nightshirt was colored yellow as a test of the ability of yellow ink to bond to newsprint. But Richard Marshall argues in his Americas Great Comic Strip Artists that this could not have been the case since yellow ink had been used earlier. Likewise Bill Blackbeard gives a detailed account of the Worlds use of color in his introduction to The Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration that makes clear the testing yellow ink theory is incorrect.
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