The phenomenon is not specific to the Internet era: In 1898, the USA and Spain were on the brink of the Spanish-American war. In January of the same year, the battleship USS Main had arrived in the port of Havana. A few days later it sank after a devastating explosion in which 268 people lost their lives. The public mood in the USA had been heated up further, among others, by two competing publicists: William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Hearst's instruction to his correspondent in Havana has been passed down: "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war." [1] At the time, the press market was an extremely lucrative business and any means was fine in the fight for an increase in circulation. Possibly, the Spanish-American war would not have broken out if this bitter battle for market share had not taken place. These and similar excesses were the reason for various press codes. And it took decades for the press to build the confidence that a fourth power in a democracy needs. [2]
