William Randolph Hearst: Yellow Journalism, a Castle and the ESPN Stake

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In 1880 mining entrepreneur and future US senator George Hearst bought the San Francisco Daily Examiner, and in 1887 he handed it to his 23-year-old son, William Randolph Hearst. The younger Hearst became editor and publisher and championed yellow journalism: giant headlines, sensational scandals, exaggerated crime stories and lavish illustrations. He bought papers in Detroit, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Washington, Baltimore, San Antonio, Albany and Milwaukee to syndicate content, launched the New York Daily Mirror in 1924 against the Daily News, founded Cosmopolitan Pictures, and partnered with MGM on Hearst Metrotone newsreels by 1929.

Spending on Hearst Castle in San Simeon and on film production left the company exposed when the Great Depression hit, and by 1937 it faced liquidation, with creditors effectively controlling the newspaper chain. In the 1930s Hearst instructed his reporters in Germany to write positive coverage of Hitler, fired journalists who refused, and gave column space to Hermann Göring and Alfred Rosenberg. He bought WBAL-TV in Baltimore in 1948 and died in August 1951 at 88, leaving a trust with 13 trustees, five from the family and eight from outside. In 1990 the trust paid between $165 and $175 million for 20 percent of ESPN, a stake now valued at over $13 billion.

• Hearst merged Hearst's International with Cosmopolitan in 1925 to free up cash as personal spending strained the business.
• World War II briefly revived his afternoon papers because European battle news reached the US in the afternoon.
• In 1947 he produced a television newscast for the DuMont Television Network.
• A 10-year newspaper strike in Los Angeles ended with the Herald Examiner closing in 1989.
• The trust dissolves only when every family member alive at Hearst's death in August 1951 has died, while the ESPN stake supplies about half of company profits.