I’ve heard of William Randolph Hearst, read a little bit about the guy. Like any other “news man”, the guy was a progressive. Actually, he was a “reformer” which is what progressives called themselves before they called themselves progressives.
Like all progressives, the news itself is simply just another means to an end.
If you’re at all interested in Hearst, I highly recommend this book. I read it about a year ago.
THE CHIEF: The Life of William Randolph Hearst
David Nasaw
Houghton Mifflin, New York, 2000
Chapter 6 – Hearst in New York: “Staging a Spectacle”
Pp. 102-103
The measure of a commercially successful newspaper is not simply how well it report the big events, but what it does when there are no dying statesmen, bloodthirsty desperadoes, or heinous crimes to write about. Hearst succeeded in New York not only because he knew how to report the big stories, but because he was a master at constructing news from nothing. News is not a phenomenon that exists in the real world, waiting to be discovered. Wars have been fought, tornadoes have raged, and hundreds of thousands of innocents have been slaughtered without ever becoming “news.” An event becomes news only when journalists and editors decide to report it. More often than not, what determines whether an occurrence is newsworthy or not is the ease with which it can be plotted and narrated so that readers will want to read about it. If there are no discernable heroes, or villains, no mysteries to uncover, no climaxes, denouements, triumphs or failures, if no one wins or loses in the end, then there is no story to tell.
Hearst’s favorite news stories were front-page tragedies of conspiracy in which the public was the innocent victim, the police and city officials the corrupt villains, and the Journal reporter the brave heroes.