Final answer:
U.S. press used yellow journalism to sensationalize the cruelty reported by José Martí, stirring public emotion and supporting the Cuban independence cause. This increased newspaper readership and influenced public opinion towards the Spanish-American War. Media magnates capitalized on the narrative of Cuba Libre to drive their business and align with American values.
Step-by-step explanation:
When José Martí reported the cruelty of the Spanish against the Cuban people, the U.S. press, which included notable publishers like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, exploited his reports to engage in yellow journalism. This type of journalism used sensationalist tactics to stir public emotion and influence opinions towards supporting the Cuban cause for independence and the United States' involvement in what would become the Spanish-American War. Routes to increase newspaper circulation included inflammatory headlines and dramatic stories with insufficient factual backing, analogous to today's clickbait and false news.
Yellow journalism was particularly effective due to its appeal to human emotions and its potential to significantly boost the sales and readership of newspapers. Hearst and Pulitzer, among others, knew that a war would provide them with the sensational content that their readers had started to crave, efficiently turning the public tide in favor of intervention. The impact of yellow journalism during the Cuban fight for independence in the late 1890s was profound, as it caused a swelling of public sentiment that had financial, humanitarian, and political motivations behind it.
Media magnates used the plight of Cubans and the rallying cry of Cuba Libre to create a narrative that not only supported their business interests but also resonated with the American people's sense of liberty and opposition to tyranny, recalling their own struggle for independence from Britain.