Year 2, Lecture 1: William Randolph Hearst and his contributions to Journalism

We started the lecture by going over the period in American history which pretty much cemented the idea of America as a blank canvas. The 1800s saw America transform, with the established cities of the East giving way to the lawless, unclaimed West coast. The 1840s and 50s saw the first Gold Rush in which, while millions left the Irish Famine and widespread disillusionment of Europe, and Asia, hundreds of thousands of those already in America took to the road and headed West to claim their fortune in the mines. This lead to a new generation of men who had worked their way from the mines to being millionaires, such as W R Hearst’s father, George Hearst who was lured from Missouri in 1850.

From this drive West emerged the Frontier Thesis which is crucial in the American psyche. They were travelling to a new place where they could establish their own way of life, free from the restraints of organised society in the East. This brought out the adventurous, violent, individualistic side of the American man which defines the American constitution. Those that succeeded in making their millions did so simply because they were stronger, smarter and had more guns than those that failed.

George’s hard won success in the mines was simply a stepping stone to the career in politics that he strived for and his son, William, used it to his advantage, showing himself as a self-made man. He also took from George’s success the fact that even poor, uneducated people could be successful, so the son of a millionaire certainly could. He came from a ‘legend-maker’ and his grass roots heritage inspired him to strive to succeed.

George either bought or won the San Francisco Examiner, depending on your sources, which he then used to head his campaign to start a political career. Early American newspapers, known as “penny papers” were either political or commercial, in a time where reporting was partisan and “objectivity” was not thought important. This meant that they acted as a voice for whoever it was that owned the paper and their political views, and were often used for party propaganda. However, in 1846, New York papers came together to organise the Associated Press which sold news stories to the papers to provide raw, uncut, objective stories to several newspapers. This was the beginning of objective, unbiased journalism.

In 1887, William took over the Examiner from his father who had no real interest in running it. He transformed the paper, showing the passion he had for journalism and reflecting his eye for art that had been honed by his trips to Europe with his mother. Front pages of newspapers used to be walls of text, simply putting as much information as possible in. WRH reduced the number and length of stories on the front page, making the headlines larger and eliminating advertisements. Above the mast head he put endorsements and circulation figures, so that the paper effectively advertised itself. His obsession with the front page did not end there, WRH was the first journalist to put illustrations on the front page of a newspaper to “attract the eye and stimulate the imagination of the lower classes and materially aid comprehension”. This appealed to a wider readership as it took into account those with low literacy and those who spoke a different language, taking not of the varied population of California. He also improved the style of the writing to make it more focused and more urgent, with sensational, snappy headlines to catch the reader’s interest.

His Examiner was pro-labour, anti-capital, anti-railroad and very much aimed at the working class. It supported the unions and worker’s rights; however it occasionally was quite racist. It used language that its readership could understand, taking into account the ‘slang’ that was developing as a way for people of all different origins to communicate, making the paper much more accessible than most.

New York was a booming, lively city fuelled by cheap labour, new technology and low commodity prices. Joseph Pulitzer owned the World and was the king of New York journalism. He was seen as a genius for his new style, very similar to WRH’s, of dramatic, sensational writing aimed at the working classes. In 1896, Hearst decided he was bored of San Francisco and set up the New York Journal in completion with Pulitzer’s The World. He poached “The Yellow Kid”, an immigrant cartoonist whose work was immediately identifiable and understandable to the working classes. He was perfect for pulling in mass audiences and very valuable to Hearst. Pulitzer hit back by employing another cartoonist to copy the Yellow Kid and thus the Journal and the World soon became known as “Yellow Papers”, now know as Red Tops in the UK.

Yellow journalism was very interested in crime and “underwear journalism” (sex stories) and the two papers soon battled for crime stories and led their own investigations, offering rewards for information on crimes and sending reporters to find out anything they could. It turned into a free-for-all and this type of investigative journalism soon became known as “muckraking”. Nellie Bly was the original Muckraker, and started the trend for undercover journalism which we see today in stories such as those dishing the dirt on footballer’s affairs. Bly did investigations such as “Ten days in the mad house” and revealed corrupt politicians, sweatshops and similar shocking stories.

The Spanish War in Cuba proved to be a boom time for Yellow journalism. In 1897, Cuba’s insurgency problems continued to build and WRH sent one of his best reporters, Harding Davis, and his best illustrator, Frederic Remington, to Cuba. Hearst was a champion for the Cuban cause and encouraged the government to get involved and break their isolationist policy. However, the reporter he sent to Cuba reported that he had “not heard a shot fired or seen an insurgent” and the illustrator also became bored and complained that “everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war.” Hearst replied “Please remain. You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the war”. This built Hearst’s reputation, however he later denied that he said it and we do not know for an absolute fact; it is difficult to distinguish between legend and truth, but subsequent actions by Hearst suggest that he was capable.

For example, he interfered once again for the story “Rescue of Evangelina Cisneros”. For this story, he set up a petition to free her, which he managed to get signed by the President’s wife, but when this was not effective, he sent a reporter to bribe prison guards to let her out and took her to New York where he paid for her stay in the Waldorf. She had an audience with the President and eventually the USS Maine was sent into Havana Harbour where, a week later, it mysteriously exploded, making war inevitable and ending American isolationist policy. The edition in which Hearst reported this was the first ever to get over the million circulation mark, marking the boom of the yellow press and showing that war, above even crime and sex, sells papers. Hearst referred to it as a “splendid little war” and pushed it in his papers, even celebrating by firing rockets from the roof of The Journal. He then went to Cuba himself with a large accompaniment which showed the extent to which journalism had changed with the emergence of the Yellows.

From Hearst’s successes, the nature of the relationship between journalism and government changed; media became a strong influence on foreign affairs and diplomatic policies, to such an extent that the line between reporting news and creating it has become blurred. Hearst was also very influential in creating a model for popular journalism which developed into the tabloid. This was later copied in the UK by Northcliffe of the Daily Mail and Rothermere of the Daily Mirror and ultimately by Rupert Murdoch and The Sun. Tabloid journalism is now hugely popular and has taken over as the leader of the journalistic world, with far more tabloids being published than broadsheets.