A war that was started by journalists?

[Telemark]

@CalMeacham

betenoir beat me to it. According to one of those Paradox Press “graphic novel-type” Big Book of ____ (I can’t recall which one) the Boxer Rebellion ultimately is traceable to a group of bored and worried-about-their-jobs-if-they-didn’t-get-a-scoop newspaper reporters in Denver, Colorado. They made up a story about a group of engineers passing through Denver en route to China to see about dismantling he Great Wall (to encourage trade). As it was a comopletely uncheckable story, they agreed to write it up. San Francisco newspapers, unable to verify but unwilling to look uninformed, passed the story along and added to it. The eports filtered through and were reprinted in Chinese newspapers, where they inflamed the nationalist groupsd with names like “Legion of Harmonious Fists”, who protested about foreigners trying to tinker with sacred Chinese structures and Chinese politics, and revolted against the government. Hence the “Boxer Rebellion”

The newspapermen in Denver, seeing what they wrought, wisely kept silent about it, agreeing that the last one alive should tell the story, years later.

Sounds like one of those too-good-to-be-true stories, which I strongly suspect it is. I never looked into it further.

I read about it in a book I have at home called “Rumor!” but I was always suspicious about the various stories told in that book. Glad to know (according to the link below) that while the hoax really happened, it didn’t lead to war half a world away.

[TV_time]

I mentioned this thread to a Latin American friend of mine a former Salvadoran, and he suggested the “Soccer War” of 1969 between El Salvador and Hondurus.

He said the jingoism of the press really got the situation going, then he said, “but you’ve got to remember both sides had the press controlled by their governments.”

So I guess this could sort of qualify even though it is (a.) hard to call something so brief a war and (b.) hard to blame it on a press controlled by the government.

[samclem]

Cal. I think that’s(Boxer Rebellion) the one my friend is remembering. Glad to know the real story.

Thanks to all the others who added some factual info. Learning more every day.