Popular Journalism

The birth of popular journalism

The birth of popular journalism is often attributed to one William Randolph Hearst. Hearst’s first newspaper was the San Francisco examiner which he took over from his father in 1887. The gold rush in the late 1870’s lead to his first real adventure as a newspaper magnate, over exaggerating the amount of gold being found in San Fran lead to a huge number of newspaper sales. This style of over exaggerating or ‘bending’ the truth is now commonly attributed to today’s modern tabloid papers. The recent invention of telegraphing news only helped as it meant up to date reports on the gold being found in his paper advertising shovels, praying on the greed on humans and providing the necessary tools to get the gold. After major success on the West coast Hearst had his eyes on the most powerful city on earth; New York, where he started the ‘New York Journal’. Here he came into direct competition with Joseph Pulitzer a Hungarian Radical escaping oppression, very much on the side of the poor and the downtrodden who had the East coasts only main paper the ‘New York World.’ At the time both men were part of the emerging United States that was singly handily wiping out the indigenous settlers that were there before its discovery to the rest of the world. San Francisco where Hearst was settled was formerly a Mexican province that they were forced out from creating the state of California, this was largely due to the influx of Europeans coming over trying to get part of the gold rush. Eastern Europeans and Irish made up a large number or poor immigrants coming over looking for work. New York at the time provided Hearst and other wealthy business owners with cheap labour however people still were free and had many rights. The ever expanding cities lead to high rise buildings being built due to high population density. This lead to better distribution tube links cheap food and extremely cheap resources from the South all which Hearst profited off.

The term ‘yellow journalism’ or ‘yellow press’ is often attributed to Hearst’s style of paper in created in New York. The term means to create news with eye-catching headlines with vastly over exaggerated stories often about crime, a tactic which prayed on people’s vulnerability and sold many newspapers. Hearst was intent to take down The New York world and after investing a large sum of money, did his best to reduce Pulitzers circulation including knocking down the prick of the Journal to only one penny, in contrast to Pulitzers two cents New York world. Hearst achieved this by appealing to the popular market, and focusing on circulation his papers, again the cheap labour being a useful actor in employing people in factories printing and then distributing the paper. Another tactic used is the introduction of competitions in his paper; Hearst also employed world renowned writes such as Mark Twain, as well as luring away Pulitzer’s writers with extremely large salaries. Another big scalp on Hearst’s part was the acquisition of the cartoonist Richard F Outcault who drew the ever popular ‘yellow kid’ cartoon in Pulitzer’s paper. The character was very popular amongst the public and was another factor in the every growing sales of Hearst’s newspaper. Pulitzer and Hearst’s yellow journalism is often thought to have played a massive role in the up and coming American-Spanish war. There had been many attempts of an uprising in Cuba to gain independence from Spain, the then President of the U.S. was pushed into a war he was trying to avoid due to public pressure fuelled by over exaggerated news stories from Pulitzer and Hearst’s papers. The Spanish army were committing atrocities against the Cuban people and Hearst made sure that these were publically known. Also the sinking of the ‘USS Maine’ by the Spanish harboured in Havana, was widely publicised one of many events that vilified the brutal Spanish people. Although at one point when Hearst had sent one of his Illustrators to Cuba he is reported to have telegraphed Hearst saying there was no chance of anything happen least of all a war to which Hearst is believed to have replied; ‘You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war’.
Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles is the story of Charles Foster Kane, loosely based on William Randolph Hearst. Hearst used his power and connections to limit the number of bookings of the film which lead to average reviews; he also made sure that any mention on the film was strictly prohibited in any of his publishing’s. Hearst eventually set out to destroy Welles by threatening to reveal Hollywood scandals about his private life that he had previously kept quiet about at the request of production companies. The film paints Charles Kane as a dark lonely figure, a media magnate who owned many papers similar to Hearst. The film draws many similarities about Kane and Hearst inheriting business from their fathers, in the film Thatcher receives a telegraph that Kane would rather take over a small newspaper than peruse a career in Mines or the banks. Hearst is portrayed as someone who is very much living the ‘American Dream’ starting with nothing and although inheriting a small business worked himself to the very top with little help just perseverance and following a dream.