William RandolphHearst

An Eternal Media Tycoon

Early Life

Born April 29, 1863 into a wealth family In 1886 he began work as reporter for Joseph

Pulitzer’s paper the New York World By 1887 he owned his own paper in

California, the San Francisco Examiner Using techniques he learned from Pulitzer,

the paper became one of the most successfulpapers in California

Marketing the News to the Public

Sharing many techniques with Pulitzer,he sold more papers by: Lowering the price of paper Including comic strips Using sensational reporting

The “Newspaper War”

Intertwined with Pulitzer from the startof his career, the competition escalated Hearst started the New York Morning

Journal in 1895 to compete with Pulitzer He hired away many of Pulitzer’s

employees, including the creator of theoriginal “Yellow Kid”

The Yellow Kid cartoon

Competition, cont.

Both papers included a version of thepopular “yellow kid”

From this cartoon and Hearst’s andPulitzer’s coverage of the Spanish-American War, “yellow journalism”came to be the standard in news

The Spanish-American War

Hearst famously said to a reporter coveringthe war “You furnish the pictures and I’llfurnish the war.”

Hearst and Pulitzer constantly put out reportsabout the atrocities of the Spanish in Cuba

When the American ship the Mainemysteriously sunk near Cuba, Hearst enragedthe American public with claims of Spanishviolence This led to the rallying cry “Remember the Maine,

to hell with Spain!”

American ship, the Maine, off Cuba

In Summation

Hearst (along with Pulitzer) developedthe sensational style that defines newsto this day

This made news a successful businessand led to the great variety of mediumsfor news today

Picture Citationshttp://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/hearst.jpghttp://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/hearst.jpghttp://www.cuba-junky.com/foto-algemeen/warca.gif

Slideshow by Josh EndoPeriod 5 Economics