The Perils Of Pauline By Louis Picotola

In this piece the author, Louis Pizzitola, dives into the history of the film and newspaper industry and, specifically, how William Randolph Hearst used his works to advocate his political propaganda. The author describes Hearst’s use of exaggeration and heightening of reality, otherwise known as sensationalism, in his reporting as well as in his films to evoke feelings of patriotism in the mass public and promote our engagement in various wars. The book begins by talking about Hearst’s childhood and how his father, George Hearst, delegated ownership of the San Francisco Examiner to him. Hearst used his executive position to advocate his style of sensationalized journalism, or “new journalism”, in order to evoke emotion in the reader and therefore
In Hearst New York Journal he runs a story called “The New Journalism at 106 Miles an Hour.” This publication is littered with illustrations and an excerpt depicting Hearst’s high-speed voyage back from a presidential inauguration with the news pictures. This was one of the first times illustrations were used in a newspaper publication, but instead of inauguration photos, all the images in the piece were from Hearst’s upcoming movie, The Perils of Pauline, which was his most popular production to date. Pizzitola states that this, “Demonstrates Hearst’s linking of yellow journalism and film.” (“Hearst over Hollywood”). The author demonstrates how Hearst uses yellow journalism in this column by describing the vivid and exciting language Hearst used to give drama to the story and evoke emotion in his readers. The author links this use of yellow journalism to his cinema by using intriguing pictures from his upcoming feature film to subliminally promoting it in the daily news. This is an example of how Hearst used his various sources of media outlets to advocate his propaganda. In this case his media outlet was his New York Journal and the propaganda was his upcoming
The author tells us that President Woodrow Wilson created the CPI for WWI to, “persuade Americans to transform an accepted policy of neutrality into readiness and willingness for war.” (“Hearst over Hollywood”). George Creel was nominated head of the branch but was directed mainly by Hearst. Since Cinema was becoming the dominant media outlet during that time Hearst had to apply his style of yellow journalism to the film industry. With a propaganda film called, “America’s Answer”, Hearst and his crew had to stretch the reality of the scenes they filmed in Germany to match the sense of seriousness and criticality that he needed to convey such intense emotions in his viewers and, subsequently, sway their opinion. An example of how Hearst brings his use of yellow journalism to the screen is when the author describes how Hearst bandaged up a company of troops and made them look as if they had been injured when in all reality they were perfectly fine. This is an example of how Hearst and his crew had to exaggerate some, if not most, of the scenes in their film to evoke the type of emotion necessary to shape the audience’s