Sensational stories hit print by the thousands from the moment there was print to hit, and prominent amongst the first cheap reading were scandalous relationships, municipal scandals, police outrages, and dangerous public conditions. Spencer (information and media studies, U. of Western Ottawa) gives full credit to the colorful journalism of the past, but succeeds in showing how Hearst, Pulitzer, and others associated with the no-holds-barred world of the transition to the twentieth century in America found that particular time and place to be particularly fruitful in speculative news, the result being both morally justifiable, in the case of exposure of corruption, but also questionable, as in promoting a war with no real purpose besides proving the power of print. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)