“We don’t go into journalism to be popular. It is our job to seek the truth and put constant pressure on our leaders until we get answers.” –Helen Thomas
This column will compare former Manila Times Associate Editor Felipe ‘Ipe’ Salvosa II to American journalist Richard Harding Davis, who was active in the early 20th century; along with looking at Manila Times publisher Dante Ang and Davis’ former boss William Randolph Hearst, the supposed father of “yellow journalism.”
Like Salvosa, who resigned last week after Ang insisted on publishing a story linking media organizations with a plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte, Davis, America’s first war correspondent, resigned after New York Journal, Hearst’s paper, ran his story about Spanish police boarding an American ship and stripping three Cuban women during a search as a headline story in 1897.
The Manila Times reporter tendered his resignation after the publisher grew angry over twitter posts questioning the “matrix,” which identified the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism; Vera Files, a local non-profit online news organization; Rappler, and the National Union of People’s Lawyers as being party to the plot.
Salvosa told Rappler, “I want to be able to teach and still look my students straight in the eye.”
Davis was 32 when he was sent to Havana to cover the conflict between Spanish authorities and Cuban insurgents in 1896, where, according to Michael Schudson’s book “Discovering the News.” He was paid $3,000 a month to report from Cuba. The journalist was also accompanied by Frederic Remington, an artist.
Schudson wrote, “Rumors and minor incidents were generally the best the correspondents had to offer,” which was a result of Spanish authorities barring journalists from the “war zone.” According to a wire Remington set to Hearst: “Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. Wish to return.” Hearst responded: “Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
While Remington left Cuba after a week despite such encouragement, Davis remained and wired the aforementioned story. The New York Journal then ran with the front page headline: “Does Our Flag Protect Women? Indignities Practiced By Spanish Officials on Board American vessels. Richard Harding Davis Describes Some Startling Phases of Cuban Situation. Refined Young Women Stripped and Search by Brutal Spaniards While Under Our Flag on the Olivette.”
The story was also accompanied by an illustration by Remington on page two depicting a naked woman surrounded by Spanish officers going through her clothing.
Nearly a half million copies of the paper were sold and, for Hearst, it was a good for building circulation.
However, the story was not quite true and the drawing was not accurate.
New York City’s leading paper at the time, New York World, published by Joseph Pulitzer, interviewed the women when they arrived in Tampa and discovered they had been search by “matrons” and not Spanish officers. The paper immediately ran a front-page story showing one of the Cuban women, Clemencia Arango, denied being searched by Spanish officers.
“[The article] popped the (New York) Journal’s balloon of scandal and outrage,” Schudson wrote. “Richard Harding Davis considered the revelation a reflection of his integrity and so he wrote to the (New York) World to defend himself.”
Pulitzer’s newspaper later featured a story headlined, “Mr. Davis explains,” where Davis argued Remington was responsible for any misrepresentations.
According to the article: “I never wrote that she was searched by men… Mr. Frederic Remington, who was not present, and who drew an imaginary picture of the scene, is responsible for the idea that the search was conducted by men. Had I seen the picture before it appeared, I should never have allowed it to accompany my article.”
Davis severed ties with Hearst and never again wrote for a Hearst paper.
Schudson continued: “This was an important moment in journalism, but its importance needs to be carefully defined. On the surface, it appears that the significance of the incident is that a reporter, proud of his professional standing and faithful to the norms of factual reporting, stood up to the evil influences of a circulation-building editor-publisher… Here, fidelity to facts is identified with reporters and threats to accuracy, with publishers, their eyes on the cash box.”
According to historians, the Spanish-American War was the first “press-driven war.”
PBS LearningMedia, a teaching resource, said of the issue: “Although it may be an exaggeration to claim that Hearst and the other yellow journalists started the war, it is fair to say that the press fueled the public’s passion for war. Without sensational headlines and stories about Cuban affairs, the mood for Cuban intervention may have been very different. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the United States emerged as a world power, and the US press proved its influence.”
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Alex P. Vidal, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two local dailies in Iloilo./WDJ