This book explores sensationalism as it took hold of U.S. media between 1870 and 1900. During this period, print news publishers became adept at translating stories about sex, crime, and violence into emotion-based pictures. Analysis of significant episodes in media history shows how a range of news media producers engaged with the sensational style. As they pioneered the art of visual journalism, news publishers conveyed racial, class, and gender anxieties in a complex dialogue with audiences that established precedents for modern media. Prominent cases – obscenity litigation, anti-Chinese vi ... More

This book explores sensationalism as it took hold of U.S. media between 1870 and 1900. During this period, print news publishers became adept at translating stories about sex, crime, and violence into emotion-based pictures. Analysis of significant episodes in media history shows how a range of news media producers engaged with the sensational style. As they pioneered the art of visual journalism, news publishers conveyed racial, class, and gender anxieties in a complex dialogue with audiences that established precedents for modern media. Prominent cases – obscenity litigation, anti-Chinese violence, the Ghost Dance, Jim Crow-era lynching, and domestic violence – demonstrate how efforts to maximize the dramatic power of the news transformed everyday reporting and established standards for visual journalism. Commercial newspaper editors exploited sensationalism’ economic benefits, while marginalized groups and social activists experimented with its power to challenge negative stereotyping and mobilize their own constituencies. By the 1890s, a wide range of publications had come to embrace, adapt, and expand the sensational style through news illustration – albeit in different ways for different audiences. The patterns prevalent in entertainment publications infiltrated the commercial dailies, and even low-budget political news sheets: few publications could afford to resist borrowing from the sensational toolkit. As sensationalism increasingly pervaded visual journalism, the very nature of the news changed.