William Randolph Hearst Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! == ''New York Morning Journal'' == {{Main|New York Journal American}} Early in his career at the ''San Francisco Examiner,'' Hearst envisioned running a large newspaper chain and "always knew that his dream of a nation-spanning, multi-paper news operation was impossible without a triumph in New York".{{sfn|Whyte|2009|p=463}} In 1895, with the financial support of his widowed mother (his father had died in 1891), Hearst bought the then failing ''[[New York Morning Journal]]'', hiring writers such as [[Stephen Crane]] and [[Julian Hawthorne]] and entering into a head-to-head circulation war with [[Joseph Pulitzer]], owner and publisher of the ''[[New York World]].'' Hearst "stole" cartoonist [[Richard F. Outcault]] along with all of Pulitzer's Sunday staff.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,859284-3,00.html |magazine=Time |title=The Press: The King Is Dead |date=August 20, 1951 |access-date=April 24, 2008 |archive-date=June 3, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080603214025/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,859284-3,00.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Another prominent hire was [[James J. Montague]], who came from the ''[[Portland Oregonian]]'' and started his well-known "More Truth Than Poetry" column at the Hearst-owned ''[[New York Journal American|New York Evening Journal]].''<ref name=nyt-obit>"James Montague, Versifier, Is Dead," ''[[New York Times]],'' December 17, 1941.</ref> When Hearst purchased the "penny paper", so called because its copies sold for a penny apiece, the ''Journal'' was competing with New York's 16 other major dailies. It had a strong focus on Democratic Party politics.{{sfn|Whyte|2009|p=48}} Hearst imported his best managers from the ''San Francisco Examiner'' and "quickly established himself as the most attractive employer" among New York newspapers. He was seen as generous, paid more than his competitors, and gave credit to his writers with page-one bylines. Further, he was unfailingly polite, unassuming, "impeccably calm", and indulgent of "prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, or reprobates so long as they had useful talents" according to historian Kenneth Whyte.{{sfn|Whyte|2009|pp=116–17}} Hearst's activist approach to journalism can be summarized by the motto, "While others Talk, the ''Journal'' Acts." === Yellow journalism and rivalry with the ''New York World'' === [[File:Hearst Vignola & Brisbane 1920.jpg|thumb|Left to right: Hearst, [[Robert G. Vignola]], and [[Arthur Brisbane]] during the filming of Vignola's ''[[The World and His Wife]]'' in [[New York City]] in April 1920]] The ''New York Journal'' and its chief rival, the ''New York World,'' mastered a style of popular journalism that came to be derided as "[[yellow journalism]]", so named after Outcault's [[Yellow Kid]] comic. Pulitzer's ''World'' had pushed the boundaries of mass appeal for newspapers through bold headlines, aggressive news gathering, generous use of cartoons and illustrations, populist politics, progressive crusades, an exuberant public spirit and dramatic crime and human-interest stories. Hearst's ''Journal'' used the same recipe for success, forcing Pulitzer to drop the price of the ''World'' from two cents to a penny. Soon the two papers were locked in a fierce, often spiteful competition for readers in which both papers spent large sums of money and saw huge gains in circulation. Within a few months of purchasing the ''Journal'', Hearst hired away Pulitzer's three top editors: Sunday editor Morrill Goddard, who greatly expanded the scope and appeal of the American Sunday newspaper; Solomon Carvalho; and a young [[Arthur Brisbane]], who became managing editor of the Hearst newspaper empire and a well-known columnist. Contrary to popular assumption, they were not lured away by higher pay—rather, each man had grown tired of the office environment that Pulitzer encouraged.{{sfn|Whyte|2009|pp=100–06, 110–11, 346–48}} While Hearst's many critics attribute the ''Journal''{{'}}s incredible success to cheap sensationalism, Kenneth Whyte noted in ''The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise Of William Randolph Hearst'': "Rather than racing to the bottom, he [Hearst] drove the ''Journal'' and the penny press upmarket. The ''Journal'' was a demanding, sophisticated paper by contemporary standards."{{sfn|Whyte|2009|p=92}} Though yellow journalism would be much maligned, Whyte said, "All good yellow journalists ... sought the human in every story and edited without fear of emotion or drama. They wore their feelings on their pages, believing it was an honest and wholesome way to communicate with readers", but, as Whyte pointed out: "This appeal to feelings is not an end in itself... [they believed] our emotions tend to ignite our intellects: a story catering to a reader's feelings is more likely than a dry treatise to stimulate thought."{{sfn|Whyte|2009|p=314}} The two papers finally declared a truce in late 1898, after both lost vast amounts of money covering the [[Spanish–American War]]. Hearst probably lost several million dollars in his first three years as publisher of the ''Journal'' (figures are impossible to verify), but the paper began turning a profit after it ended its fight with the ''World.''{{sfn|Whyte|2009|pp=455, 463}} Under Hearst, the ''Journal'' remained loyal to the populist or left wing of the Democratic Party. It was the only major publication in the East to support [[William Jennings Bryan]] in 1896. Its coverage of that election was probably the most important of any newspaper in the country, attacking relentlessly the unprecedented role of money in the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] campaign and the dominating role played by [[William McKinley]]'s political and financial manager, [[Mark Hanna]], the first national party 'boss' in American history.{{sfn|Whyte|2009|pp=164–65, 178}} A year after taking over the paper, Hearst could boast that sales of the ''Journal's'' post-election issue (including the evening and German-language editions) topped 1.5 million, a record "unparalleled in the history of the world."{{sfn|Whyte|2009|p=193}} The ''Journal's'' political coverage, however, was not entirely one-sided. Kenneth Whyte says that most editors of the time "believed their papers should speak with one voice on political matters"; by contrast, in New York, Hearst "helped to usher in the multi-perspective approach we identify with the modern op-ed page".{{sfn|Whyte|2009|p=163}} At first he supported the [[Russian Revolution]] of 1917 but later he turned against it. Hearst fought hard against [[Wilsonianism|Wilsonian internationalism]], the [[League of Nations]], and the World Court, thereby appealing to an [[isolationist]] audience.{{sfn|Nasaw|2000|pp=270–74, 378}} Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! 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