WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST

William Randolph Hearst

April 29, 1863 in San Francisco, California

Born:

August 14, 1951 in Beverly Hills, California

Died:

William Randolph Hearst built the largest newspaper chain, whose methods profoundly influenced American journalism.

Immediate Family

Father: George Hearst

Mother: Pheobe Apperson Hearst

George Hearst was a millionaire goldmine owner and former United States Senator from 1861 to 1891

Phoebe Apperson Hearst was a philanthropist, feminist, and suffragist. The first female Regent at the University of California at Berkeley. , funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology.

• In 1903, Hearst married Millicent Veronica Willson (1882–1974), a 21-year-old chorus girl, in New York City. Evidence in Louis Pizzitola's book Hearst Over Hollywood indicates that Millicent's mother Hannah Willson ran a Tammany-connected and -protected brothel quite near the headquarters of political power in New York City at the turn of the 20th century. Millicent bore him five sons: George Randolph Hearst, born on April 23, 1904; William Randolph Hearst, Jr., born on January 27, 1908; John Randolph Hearst, born in 1910; and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Whitmire (né Elbert Willson) Hearst, born on December 2, 1915.

• Hearst became involved in an affair with popular film actress and comedienne Marion Davies (1897–1961), and from about 1919, he lived openly with her in California. The affair dominated Davies's life. Millicent separated from Hearst in the mid-1920s after tiring of his longtime affair with Davies, but the couple remained legally married until Hearst's death. Millicent built an independent life for herself in New York City as a leading philanthropist, was active in society, and created the Free Milk Fund for the poor in 1921.

The Spanish American War

Education

Political Career: House of Representatives, Mayor & Governor of New York City & New York State

Yellow Journalism Cont.

• The Morning Journal’s daily circulation would routinely climb above the 1 million mark after the sinking of the Maine and U.S. entry into the Spanish-American War, a war that some dubbed, "The Journal's War" due to the paper's immense influence in provoking American outrage against Spain.[19] Much of the coverage leading up to the war, beginning with the outbreak of the Cuban Revolution in 1895, was tainted by rumor, propaganda, and sensationalism, with the “yellow” papers regarded as the worst offenders. Indeed, the Journal and other New York newspapers were so one-sided and full of errors in their reporting that coverage of the Cuban crisis and the ensuing Spanish-American War are often cited as low points in the history of the American press. The Journal’s crusade against Spanish rule in Cuba was not due to mere jingoism or a desire to sell papers, although “the democratic ideals and humanitarianism that inspired their coverage are largely lost to history,” as are their “heroic efforts to find the truth on the island under unusually difficult circumstances.” [20

• Hearst enrolled in the Harvard College class of 1885. While there he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the A.D. Club (a Harvard Final club), the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and of the Harvard Lampoon before being expelled for antics ranging from sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square to sending pudding pots used as chamber pots to his professors (their images were depicted within the bowls).[6]

A Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives, in which he served two terms, covering the period from 1903 to 1907, he narrowly failed in attempts to become mayor of New York City in both 1905 and 1909 and governor of New York in 1906, nominally remaining a Democrat while also creating the Independence Party. He was defeated for the governorship by Charles Evans Hughes. Hearst unsuccessful campaigns for office after his tenure in the House Of Representatives earned him the unflattering but short-lived nickname of “William 'Also-Randolph' Hearst

Expansion

Real Estate Holdings

Career: Publishing

• In part to aid in his political ambitions, Hearst opened newspapers in some other cities, among them Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. The creation of his Chicago paper was requested by the Democratic National Committee, and Hearst used this as an excuse for Phoebe Hearst to transfer him the necessary start-up funds. By the mid-1920s he had a nation-wide string of 28 newspapers, among them the Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship the San Francisco Examiner. • Hearst also diversified his publishing interests into book publishing and magazines; several of the latter are still in circulation, including such periodicals as Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Town and Country, and Harper's Bazaar.

• In 1924 he opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News, Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909.[22] He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York); King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests

• Hearst promoted writers and cartoonists despite the lack of any apparent demand for them by his readers. The press critic A. J. Liebling reminds us how many Hearst stars would not be deemed employable elsewhere. One Hearst favorite, George Herriman, was the inventor of the dizzy comic strip Krazy Kat; not especially popular with either readers or editors at the time of its initial publication, it is now considered by many to be a classic, a belief once held only by Hearst himself.

• Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887 after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father. Giving his paper a grand motto, “Monarch of the Dailies,”

• He acquired The New York Journal and engaged in a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World that led to the creation of yellow journalism—sensationalized stories of dubious veracity.

• Beginning in 1919, Hearst began to build Hearst Castle, which he was destined never to complete, on a 240,000 acre (97,000 ha) ranch at San Simeon, California, which he furnished with art, antiques and entire rooms brought from the great houses of Europe. He also used the ranch for an Arabian horse breeding operation.

• Hearst later paid $120,000 for an H-shaped Beverly Hills mansion in 1947. This home is now perhaps the “most expensive” private home in the U.S., valued at $165 million (£81.4 million). It has 29 bedrooms, three swimming pools, tennis courts, its own cinema and a nightclub. Lawyer and investor Leonard Ross has owned it since 1976. The estate was on sale for $95 million as of the end of 2010.[33]

New York World

New York Journal

Hearst Newspapers

• Acquiring more newspapers, Hearst created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. He later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world.

Hearst Publication expansion continue...

Hearst Reality vs. Hollywood Fiction

Yellow Journalism

• One of the most influential films of all time was Orson Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane, which was loosely based on parts of Hearst's life. (Welles and co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz added bits and pieces from the lives of other rich men of the time, among them Harold McCormick, Samuel Insull and Howard Hughes, to these parts of Hearst's life and composited them into Kane.) Hearst, enraged at the idea of Citizen Kane being a thinly disguised and very unflattering portrait of him and ignoring the other elements that made up the character of Kane, used all his resources and influence in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the film from being released - all without his ever even having seen it in the first place. Welles and the studio, RKO, resisted the pressure, but Hearst and his Hollywood friends succeeded in getting theater chains to limit bookings of Citizen Kane,[38] resulting in mediocre box-office numbers and seriously harming Welles's career.

• Citizen Kane was twice ranked No.1 on the list of the American Film Institute's 100 greatest films of all time (1998 & 2007). Hearst's own image has largely been informed and reinforced by the film.

• The New York Journal and its chief rival, the New York World, mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as “Yellow Journalism,” after Outcault's Yellow Kid comic. Pulitzer's World had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit, and dramatic crime and human-interest stories.

• Hearst's Journal used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the World from 2 cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers would spend large sums of money and see huge gains in circulation.

• In 1924 he opened the New York Daily Mirror, a racy tabloid frankly imitating the New York Daily News, Among his other holdings were two news services, Universal News and International News Service, or INS, the latter of which he founded in 1909.[22] He also owned INS companion radio station WINS in New York); King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyrights of a number of popular comics characters; a film company, Cosmopolitan Productions; extensive New York City real estate; and thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, along with timber and mining interests

• The Hearst news empire reached a circulation and revenue peak about 1928, but the economic collapse of the Great Depression and the vast over-extension of his empire cost him control of his holdings. It is unlikely that the newspapers ever paid their own way; mining, ranching and forestry provided whatever dividends the Hearst Corporation paid out. When the collapse came, all Hearst properties were hit hard, but none more so than the papers; adding to the burden were the Chief's now-conservative politics, increasingly at odds with those of his readers. Having been refused the right to sell another round of bonds to unsuspecting investors, the shaky empire tottered. Unable to service its existing debts, Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937. From that point, Hearst was reduced to being merely another employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager.[30] Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, the film company shut down; there was even a well-publicized sale of art and antiquities. While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over.

• The Hearst Corporation continues to this day as a large, privately held media conglomerate based in New York City.

Citizen Kane "Rosebud Scene"