William Randolph Hearst was an incredibly successful business owner and publisher in the newspaper industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s. His father owned the San Francisco Examiner, which Hearst later took over in 1887 after graduating from Harvard University. When he moved to New York City, Hearst bought the New York Morning Journal from its previous owner. Once his Journal business was under way, Hearst hired some of the most famous journalists, including Mark Twain, to work for him. He eventually expanded his business to publishing magazines as well, and at one time, in 1935, owned 28 newspapers and 18 magazines. At the end of his life in 1951, Hearst had owned 16 daily newspapers and 8 monthly magazines including Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping, which are still around today. He also owned radio station and movie companies.
While in the newspaper business, Hearst brought new meaning to the term "yellow journalism." When Hearst took over the Journal, he was in competition with Joseph Pulitzer, who owned the New York World. Hearst stole Pulitzer's writing style, and comic character, "the yellow kid." When Pulitzer fought back, the battle between the two publishers became known as "yellow journalism." Hearst furthered yellow journalism, making the newspaper into a "combination of reformist investigative reporting and lurid sensationalism" (Zpub). Hearst wrote his stories to sell his paper, and did not produced well-researched stories that were reliable.
Because of this, Hearst made a huge impact in the newspaper industry. At the start of the Spanish-American war, Hearst was shocked to learn that his editors were not planning on running a news story on an explosion that, to Hearst, meant the war had begun. Hearst had the Journal run this story, and cover the rest of the Spanish- American war in the paper from then on. This war coverage by the Journal was supposed set a standard for how future journalists were to cover important events in society. The stories he published in the Journal, especially those covering the war, were the first to have "banner headlines and lavish illustrations" (Zpub). His first report on the start of the war is claimed to have itself started the war. He wrote multiple stories to enhance the war and turn Americans against the Spanish just for the sake of his newspaper's success. Hearst is also blamed for turning Americans against the Japanese, the Russians, and the Filipinos because of his journalism.
Though he caused many journalistic problems at the time, Hearst made his profits. Later in his life, he bought 240,000 acres of land in California and built a mansion that he furnished with European art and artifacts. However, the Great Depression soon took a toll on Hearst's fortune. He lost a lot of money along with the control over his enormous media empire. His impact on journalism and the media was permanent, though. Hearst created a company that was still one of the largest corporations in the US in the beginning of the 2000s.
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