Journalists Question:

It was used by journalists Hearst and Pulitzer to sell more papers and at the same time stirred up war fever amongst the American public. They played on the emotions of Americans by publishing undocumented stories of atrocities in Cuba as well as telling the people that the USS Maine was in fact destroyed by the Spanish. To this day, there is no real proof as to whether or not the ship hit Spanish or some internal explosion sunk the ship.