General Notes

BIOGRAPHY: William Randolph Hearst was born on April 29, 1863, in San Francisco, California, as the only child of George Hearst, a self-made multimillionaire miner and rancher, and  Phoebe Apperson Hearst. In 1887, at 23 he became "Proprietor" of the San Francisco Examiner which his father, George Hearst, accepted as payment for a gambling debt... In 1903, Mr. Hearst married Millicent Willson in New York City. The couple had five sons together during their marriage: George, William Randolph Jr., John and twins Randolph and David. Hearst died in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Aug. 14, 1951, at age 88. He is interred at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California.  Inspired by the journalism of Joseph Pulitzer, Hearst turned the newspaper into a combination of reformist investigative reporting and lurid sensationalism. He soon developed a reputation for employing the best journalists available. This included Ambrose Bierce, Stephen Crane, Mark Twain, Richard Harding Davis and Jack London. Hearst was a member of the United States House of Representatives (1903-07) In the 1920s Hearst built a castle on a 240,000 acre ranch at San Simeon, California. At his peak he owned 28 major newspapers and 18 magazines, along with several radio stations and movie companies. The Great Depression weakened his financial position and by 1940 he had lost personal control of his vast communications empire. Hearst upset the left-wing in America by being a pro-Nazi in the 1930s and a staunch anti-Communist in the 1940s. William Randolph Hearst studied at Harvard, then took over the San Francisco Examiner in 1887 from his father. He acquired the New York Morning Journal (1895), and launched the Evening Journal in 1896. He sensationalized journalism by the introduction of banner headlines and lavish illustrations. Believed by many to have initiated the Spanish--American War of 1898  to encourage sales of his newspaper, he also advocated political assassination in an editorial just months before the assassination of President McKinley. His national chain of newspapers and periodicals grew to include the Chicago Examiner , Boston American , Cosmopolitan , and Harper's Bazaar . His life inspired the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane --
"Yellow Journalism" Though the term was originally coined to describe the journalistic practices of Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst proved himself worthy of the title. Today, it is his name that is synonymous with "yellow journalism." The Sensational Beginnings of Yellow Journalism ... where "yellow journalism" got its start. In a classic example of the power of ownership, Hearst responded to illustrator Frederic Remington's request to return from a Havana that was quiet, "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war." --Spanish--American War of 1898. When an explosion sank the Maine and killed hundreds of sailors in the Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898, journalists, including those from the Journal, recommended caution in speculating the cause of the disaster. Hearst had other ideas. When he learned of the explosion, he called the Journal city desk and asked the editor on duty what other stories were to be played on the front page. When the editor replied “just the other big news,” Hearst exploded that there was no other big news and the sinking of the Maine meant war. Two days later the Journal was banging the war drum with such headlines as “War? Sure!” Coverage of the Spanish-American War, soon to become the Journal’s war, established a template for the next century of how journalists were to cover significant events. After thirty-five years of this type of journalism, newsmen and women at competing papers were amused when Hearst issued a bulletin in 1933 that established editorial guidelines for his newsrooms across the country: - Introduction, Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962  by Robert Leicester Wagner. Ernest L. Meyer wrote: "Mr. Hearst in