ABSTRACT
This chapter examines news accounts coming out of the upper plains in the tense weeks leading up to the Wounded Knee Massacre and discerns in them a style of sensational reporting, notable for its "constantly alarming and hyperbolic" tone that would likely exacerbate the fears of readers who were unfamiliar with Indian ways. It focuses on whether these reports contributed to what may be labeled a "moral panic" among settlers and other white authorities who encouraged the US military to take action against the Lakota, regardless of real or imagined threats. Whiteside ordered an encampment near Wounded Knee Creek, and the next morning, Colonel James Forsyth ordered his men to confiscate all Indian guns. While the news coverage stressed an alarming situation in the Pine Ridge area, some reports before Wounded Knee, in explaining the desperate situation facing the Lakota, expressed a sympathetic tone.
