William Randolph Hearst

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William Randolph Hearst (1906)
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William Randolph Hearst (born April 29, 1863 in San Francisco , † August 14, 1951 in Beverly Hills ) was an American publisher and media tycoon . At the beginning of the 20th century, he owned the largest newspaper chain in America and is considered one of the most important and influential journalists in American history. Hearst was one of the richest people in the world and was an art collector, nature lover and main role model for the title character in Orson Welles ' classic film Citizen Kane (1941).

Life

William Randolph Hearst was the only child of George Hearst , a multimillionaire rich in mining and farming , and his wife Phoebe . After successfully studying journalism at Harvard , he started working at Harvard Lampoon , which was headed by Joseph Pulitzer . In 1887 he took over the San Francisco Examiner newspaper , radically redesigning it with great success. Inspired by Pulitzer's journalism, he directed his journalists to write shocking news to delight readers.

When his father died in 1891, he left a fortune of $ 7.5 million (around $ 217,000,000 today). Bought with the new financial possibilities Hearst 1895, the New Yorker newspaper Morning Journal , committed some of the most famous journalists and opened up a market of several million readers. So he competed with his former mentor Pulitzer, who was the publisher of New York World at the time.

Impact on the Spanish-American War of 1898 - Yellow Press

Hearst (around 1905)

As early as the middle of the 19th century, there was strong US interest in the Spanish colony of Cuba . While at this time a war with the militarily strong Spain was out of the question, the situation changed after the Cubans' 30-year struggle for independence against the Spanish colonial power. Politically and militarily, the USA now felt in a position to dispute Spain's colony of Cuba. A welcome occasion was the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor , which Hearst and Pulitzer in particular declared a cause for war. The published in the Hearst press battle cry was "Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain" ( Remember the Maine, to hell with Spain ), although at this time a Spanish blame for the accident not even up for discussion. Hearst went even further. He instructed his correspondent Remington to stay in Havana and send pictures so that he, Hearst, could make the war ( "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war." , WR Hearst).

Hearst and Pulitzer, who had both recognized some time ago that sensational news promised good sales, published reports and pictures in their newspapers of the abuse of the Cuban population under the command of Spanish General Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau , the concentration camps ( campos de reconcentración ) set up. People at the time had never seen such images in a public medium. The headline "Enter the butcher" ( appearance of the butcher ) was referring to the Spanish General Weyler and should prepare the war psychologically. Hearst's newspapers, which initially sold a good 77,000 copies, suddenly had sales of over a million. Stories of Cuban rebels ( mambí ) who fought against the Spanish occupation were published in the newspapers. These reports aroused sympathy for rebels and had a strong influence on the opinion of the readers. Hearst made no secret of the fact that he believed only war was the right solution to the problem. Now a war could no longer be prevented. Hearst spared no effort to get better stories published than Pulitzer; u. a. he began to poach Pulitzer's best journalists and illustrators . This way of spreading sensational news was given the name " Yellow Press ", an allusion to the comic strips of The Yellow Kid and the yellow newspaper that appear regularly in Pulitzer's and then Hearst's newspapers .

Hearst expanded his business in the years that followed with the fortune he had made from doing good business during the Spanish-American War and conquering the newspaper markets of San Francisco and New York. He founded the Chicago American in 1900 , the Chicago Examiner and the Boston American in 1902, and the Los Angeles Examiner in 1904 . This meant more than just expanding his empire, it was also intended to support him in his greatest goal: to become President of the United States.

Political attempts

Hearst (1910)

In 1902 and 1904 he won the House of Representatives elections as a member of the Democratic Party . However, his $ 2 million presidential election campaign and newspaper management left him with very little time for congressional duties . His constant absence angered the other politicians. Despite everything, Hearst still found time to stand for election as New York City Mayor in 1905 and attempted to be elected governor in 1906 . After he was not elected twice, Hearst withdrew from politics.

Hearst was considered "the spokesman of the Kaiser" during the First World War and tried as long as possible to keep the USA out of the war. Therefore, during the election campaign in 1917, the Republican Party adopted the anti-Democratic slogan "Hearst, Hylan, the Hohenzollerns, and the Habsburgs". published. Hearst described the peace treaties after the war as stupid, especially with regard to Japan and Russia, and the division of Austria-Hungary and the various territorial divisions as a step backwards.

In 1903 he married the 21-year-old Millicent Willson, with whom he had five sons: George Randolph Hearst, Sr. (1904–1972), William Randolph Hearst, Jr. (1907–1993), John Randolph Hearst, Sr. (1910– 1958), David Whitmire Hearst (1915-1986), and Randolph Apperson Hearst (1915-2000). When Hearst's mother died in 1919, he moved to the 680 square kilometer San Simeon farm that had previously belonged to his father. There he built his own castle ( Hearst Castle ) for 37 million dollars (today around 546,000,000 dollars) , in which parties were often given with many Hollywood celebrities, and gave 50 million dollars each (today around 738,000,000 dollars) for real estate in New York and for works of art. The latter he was able to buy cheaply in part due to the great hardship that prevailed in Europe after the First World War. In 1925 and 1931, he acquired entire monastery buildings a. a. in Spain, which he had dismantled and sent to the United States.

Hearst expressed sympathy for National Socialism and Italian fascism in the 1930s , but was also a supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt . This is how Hitler and Mussolini wrote Churchill in his newspapers. With his film production company Cosmopolitan Productions , founded in 1918 - Hearst was a total producer of over 200 films - he made the film Between Today and Tomorrow in 1933 , which takes a very positive view of fascism and shows a US dictator as a hero. In 1934 he traveled to Germany, where he was received by Adolf Hitler . After this trip, Hearst's newspapers published articles against the Soviet Union ; a series of articles by Hermann Göring also appeared , but it quickly disappeared due to violent protests. A complete turnaround in Hearst's position was brought about by the November 1938 pogroms , which he publicly described as barbarism and made Hitler and the Nazis fully responsible for these crimes; his newspapers were among the first to cover the Holocaust .

Successes in the 1930s

In the 1930s, Hearst's fortune had been badly damaged by the aftermath of the October 1929 stock market crash , but Hearst was one of the richest people in the world at $ 200 million in 1935 (around $ 3,717,000,000 today). In the 1940s he owned 25 daily newspapers , 24 weekly newspapers , twelve radio stations , two worldwide news companies, the Cosmopolitan film studio, and several other media companies. In 1948 he bought one of the first US television stations in Baltimore . Hearst sold more than 13 million newspapers daily and reached around 40 million readers with them. Almost a third of US adults read a Hearst newspaper, and many received this information in the form of films and newspapers translated abroad.

In coordination with DuPont and Anslinger , the Hearst newspapers were very successful in influencing the ban on hemp , which was enforced in 1937. Critics such as Jack Herer accuse Hearst of not wanting to protect humanity from the "most dangerous drug since the dawn of mankind" with his campaign against marijuana , but that economic interests were in the foreground. Hearst was a forest owner and a paper mill magnate, and new harvesting machines made hemp an overpowering competitor.

Hearst died on August 14, 1951 in Beverly Hills . His marriage to Millicent Willson lasted until his death. However, he had an affair with actress Marion Davies for almost 30 years .

Hearst suffered financial slumps in the late 1930s. Davies supported him financially by selling her jewelry and providing him with the proceeds of one million dollars (around $ 18,372,000 today). It was only after Hearst's death in 1951 that Davies married a businessman.

reception

The film Citizen Kane , shot by Orson Welles in 1941, shows strong echoes of Hearst's biography, whereupon the latter started a media campaign to prevent this. However, he couldn't prevent the film from being distributed.

In the 18th James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies , villain and media mogul Elliot Carver (played by Jonathan Pryce ) was modeled after William Randolph Hearst. Carver even quotes Hearst shortly before the end: "The unique William Randolph Hearst told his photographer, 'Deliver the photos, I'll deliver the war." I only went one step further. "

The film The Cat's Meow is based on the never-proven rumor that the film producer Thomas Ince was shot out of jealousy by Hearst in November 1924 at a celebration of his 44th birthday on Hearst's yacht. Prominent guests such as Charles Chaplin and Louella Parsons were present . What really happened is unknown. According to one version of the rumor, Ince was shot by Hearst while chasing Chaplin over the yacht with his revolver drawn. Hearst caught Chaplin with his lover, actress Marion Davies . He missed Chaplin and met Ince who happened to be on deck. According to another version, Hearst confused Chaplin and Ince when the shot was fired. Hearst then misused his press power to cover up the crime; while the morning papers were still reporting murder, the evening papers stopped reporting the incident, while Hearst's newspapers said Ince had died of an acute upset stomach. Louella Parsons was rewarded for her silence with a lifelong job as a Hollywood reporter for his newspapers. The fact that Ince's body was cremated without an autopsy did nothing to stop the rumors.

In the novels Empire and Hollywood by Gore Vidal Hearst is represented in its capacity as a newspaper publisher and film producer and stands there in close connection to the main characters .

See also

literature

  • Martin Bethke: Power and impotence of words. William Randolph Hearst and the US Path to World Power, 1898–1917. Dissertation, University of Jena 2001 ( PDF ).
  • Ben Procter: William Randolph Hearst. The Early Years, 1863-1910. Oxford University Press, New York NY et al. 1998, ISBN 0-19-511277-6 .
  • Ben Procter: William Randolph Hearst. Final Edition, 1911–1951. Oxford University Press, New York NY et al. 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-532534-8 .

Web links

Commons : William Randolph Hearst  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Calculation using a template: Inflation
  2. ↑ cf. David Nasaw "The Chief" (2000), p. 270.
  3. ↑ cf. u. a. David Nasaw "The Chief" (2000), p. XIV.
  4. ↑ cf. David Nasaw "The Chief" (2000), p. 554.
  5. ^ Rafael Medoff: Hearst and the Holocaust . Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2009
  6. ↑ Marijuana's distant cousin. America's was against Hemp
  7. ↑ Oh, boy! , Article of October 4, 1961 on Spiegel Online
  8. ↑ This version was spread among others in Kenneth Anger's book Hollywood Babylon (1959).
personal data
SURNAME Hearst, William Randolph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American publisher and media tsar
DATE OF BIRTH April 29, 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 1951
Place of death Beverly Hills