Why did "The New York Sun" newspaper falsely say that Sir John Herschel had discovered a lunar civilization?

Question

The New York Sun perpetrated a hoax in August 1835, falsely reporting that the British astronomer Sir John Herschel had used a new kind of telescope to discover an advanced civilization on the moon. Why did they do that?

Answer 1

Then as now  many media reports are created to sell newspapers.

Answer 2

Herschel had gone to South Africa with a good telescope to make observations of the Southern Hemisphere sky. His observations were important though not spectacular.

An enterprising reporter, hoping to zip things up, invented the whole thing. By that time, Herschel was at sea, heading home, and it took quite a while before he had the chance to refute the story.