WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.160 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are strapping 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:07.339 ourselves in for a truly epic plunge into the 00:00:07.339 --> 00:00:10.859 life of a man whose shadow still looms over modern 00:00:10.859 --> 00:00:15.279 media, politics, and, well, culture. William 00:00:15.279 --> 00:00:16.940 Randolph Hearst. It really does. We're talking 00:00:16.940 --> 00:00:19.500 about the original media mogul, maybe the most 00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:21.820 famous in American history. Think of him as the 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:25.000 precursor to every publishing titan, every cable 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:27.539 news owner. And every social media kingmaker 00:00:27.539 --> 00:00:30.920 all rolled into one really powerful, really contradictory 00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:33.700 figure. Right. So our mission today is to go 00:00:33.700 --> 00:00:36.780 far beyond the caricature, beyond Charles Foster 00:00:36.780 --> 00:00:39.960 Kane, and really uncover the real complex and 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:42.619 often explosive life of the man who created the 00:00:42.619 --> 00:00:45.039 Hearst Communications empire. And what an empire 00:00:45.039 --> 00:00:47.179 it was. At its absolute peak, we're talking the 00:00:47.179 --> 00:00:49.619 mid -1930s, this wasn't just a handful of papers. 00:00:49.700 --> 00:00:51.840 No, this was the nation's largest newspaper chain. 00:00:52.219 --> 00:00:54.579 He controlled the editorial positions, the political 00:00:54.579 --> 00:00:57.539 coverage across almost 30 papers, plus all the 00:00:57.539 --> 00:00:59.759 magazines. The reach is what's just staggering. 00:00:59.899 --> 00:01:02.259 He was hitting about 20 million daily readers. 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:04.500 20 million. I mean, that's a huge portion of 00:01:04.500 --> 00:01:07.060 the entire literate American public. And they 00:01:07.060 --> 00:01:09.840 were all being fed a singular viewpoint every 00:01:09.840 --> 00:01:14.299 single day. That scale, it allowed him to pioneer 00:01:14.299 --> 00:01:17.420 methods that were, let's say, often sensationalistic. 00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:20.390 Ethically questionable. Oh, absolutely. And those 00:01:20.390 --> 00:01:22.769 methods really influenced the direction of popular 00:01:22.769 --> 00:01:26.049 media for the next century. He figured out, you 00:01:26.049 --> 00:01:28.109 know, for almost anyone else, how to leverage 00:01:28.109 --> 00:01:30.810 his personal views directly into public consumption 00:01:30.810 --> 00:01:33.269 on a massive scale. So he wasn't just selling 00:01:33.269 --> 00:01:35.989 news. No, he was selling his opinion, packaged 00:01:35.989 --> 00:01:37.549 his news. Okay, let's start at the beginning 00:01:37.549 --> 00:01:40.590 with his lineage. Because to understand the sheer 00:01:40.590 --> 00:01:43.430 financial muscle he had, you have to know where 00:01:43.430 --> 00:01:46.189 he came from. He was born in San Francisco, 1863, 00:01:46.409 --> 00:01:50.150 into just... Serious, serious wealth. Yeah, serious 00:01:50.150 --> 00:01:52.810 Gilded Age wealth. His father, George Hearst, 00:01:52.890 --> 00:01:55.129 was a brilliant mining engineer, became a millionaire 00:01:55.129 --> 00:01:57.189 from huge stakes in things like the Comstock 00:01:57.189 --> 00:01:59.150 Lode in Nevada. Right, and the Homestake Mine. 00:01:59.269 --> 00:02:01.569 This wasn't old money. This was raw, self -made 00:02:01.569 --> 00:02:03.730 mining power. And that translated directly into 00:02:03.730 --> 00:02:05.769 political influence. He eventually became a U 00:02:05.769 --> 00:02:08.530 .S. Senator for California. And his mother, Phoebe 00:02:08.530 --> 00:02:11.590 Eberson Hearst, was just as important, a major 00:02:11.590 --> 00:02:13.990 figure in her own right, especially in philanthropy 00:02:13.990 --> 00:02:17.139 and education. A true force. Phoebe became the 00:02:17.139 --> 00:02:19.219 first woman regent of the University of California, 00:02:19.439 --> 00:02:21.800 Berkeley. She poured the family fortune into 00:02:21.800 --> 00:02:24.400 education, funded anthropological expeditions, 00:02:24.500 --> 00:02:26.740 established libraries. So you have this family 00:02:26.740 --> 00:02:30.219 with immense money, institutional power. And 00:02:30.219 --> 00:02:32.759 a very early taste for influencing public life. 00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:35.340 They understood power beyond just holding office. 00:02:35.580 --> 00:02:37.639 So you'd think this wildly privileged background 00:02:37.639 --> 00:02:41.169 would produce, you know, a quiet. conformist 00:02:41.169 --> 00:02:43.090 young man. Not even close. What's fascinating 00:02:43.090 --> 00:02:45.789 is how his youth was defined by this, this calculated 00:02:45.789 --> 00:02:48.509 rebellion against authority. He went to St. Paul 00:02:48.509 --> 00:02:50.409 School, which was very rigid, and then he gets 00:02:50.409 --> 00:02:53.129 into Harvard in 1885. But his time there was 00:02:53.129 --> 00:02:54.889 more about spectacle than scholarship, right? 00:02:54.990 --> 00:02:57.009 Completely. He was already practicing the art 00:02:57.009 --> 00:02:59.710 of the sensational gesture. He was in the elite 00:02:59.710 --> 00:03:02.530 clubs, Delta Kappa Epsilon, the hasty pudding 00:03:02.530 --> 00:03:05.889 at theatricals. And crucially, the Harvard Lampoon. 00:03:06.169 --> 00:03:09.469 Exactly. His first taste of using print for subversive 00:03:09.469 --> 00:03:12.030 ends. But his college antics are what's really 00:03:12.030 --> 00:03:14.710 legendary. Just massive expenditures. The party. 00:03:14.830 --> 00:03:17.810 Oh, the party. Sponsoring these huge unsanctioned 00:03:17.810 --> 00:03:20.370 beer parties right on Harvard Square for hundreds 00:03:20.370 --> 00:03:22.909 of students. But the thing that finally got him 00:03:22.909 --> 00:03:26.250 expelled. That was something else entirely. The 00:03:26.250 --> 00:03:28.310 chamber pot incident. You have to tell us about 00:03:28.310 --> 00:03:31.610 this. So he notoriously sends chamber pots, sometimes 00:03:31.610 --> 00:03:33.629 they're called pudding pots, to several of his 00:03:33.629 --> 00:03:35.990 professors, the ones he really disliked. Okay. 00:03:36.030 --> 00:03:40.090 But get this. The twist, the real stroke of malice, 00:03:40.129 --> 00:03:43.569 was that he had their own images, pictures, or 00:03:43.569 --> 00:03:46.830 drawings of them depicted inside the bowls of 00:03:46.830 --> 00:03:51.590 the pots. Yes. It was this public, graphic, unforgettable 00:03:51.590 --> 00:03:54.449 insult designed to humiliate. them. And that 00:03:54.449 --> 00:03:56.069 was the end of his Harvard career. It just shows 00:03:56.069 --> 00:03:58.650 even at 24, he understood how to use imagery 00:03:58.650 --> 00:04:01.389 and spectacle for maximum impact. That is just 00:04:01.389 --> 00:04:03.729 an incredible dedication to a prank. But his 00:04:03.729 --> 00:04:05.530 expulsion seems to be the pivot point, right? 00:04:05.590 --> 00:04:08.740 The moment he goes into publishing. It is. He 00:04:08.740 --> 00:04:10.719 needed something to do. He'd been begging his 00:04:10.719 --> 00:04:13.360 father for a paper, and the senator finally relented. 00:04:13.659 --> 00:04:17.139 In 1887, he gives him control of the San Francisco 00:04:17.139 --> 00:04:19.259 Examiner. And the origin of the Examiner is classic 00:04:19.259 --> 00:04:22.079 Gilded Age stuff. It really is. His father got 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:24.399 it back in 1880, not because he was interested 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:26.939 in journalism, but as repayment for a gambling 00:04:26.939 --> 00:04:29.759 debt. It was just a failing paper, a pawn. And 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:32.519 Hearst immediately stamps his personality all 00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:35.730 over it. This little paper, acquired for a debt, 00:04:36.089 --> 00:04:38.610 is suddenly branded the monarch of the dailies. 00:04:38.730 --> 00:04:41.509 The audacity, right. But he took it incredibly 00:04:41.509 --> 00:04:44.110 seriously. He poured money into it, getting the 00:04:44.110 --> 00:04:46.430 most advanced printing equipment available. Which 00:04:46.430 --> 00:04:48.829 let him print faster, with more visual impact 00:04:48.829 --> 00:04:51.970 than anyone else. Exactly. And critically, he 00:04:51.970 --> 00:04:53.949 recruited star talent. He didn't just recruit, 00:04:54.069 --> 00:04:56.490 he poached. He went after the best writers of 00:04:56.490 --> 00:04:58.370 the time and paid them handsomely. Who was on 00:04:58.370 --> 00:05:01.759 that early roster? Literary giants. Ambrose Bierce, 00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:04.399 who had this powerful, cynical voice, Mark Twain, 00:05:04.459 --> 00:05:07.519 Jack London, and the political cartoonist Homer 00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:10.139 Davenport. This willingness to spend a fortune 00:05:10.139 --> 00:05:12.740 on star columnists was a hallmark of his approach 00:05:12.740 --> 00:05:15.199 from day one. So what was the tone of this new 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:18.100 monarch? Was he already the conservative firebrand 00:05:18.100 --> 00:05:20.980 he'd later become? The complete opposite, which 00:05:20.980 --> 00:05:23.259 is one of the great contradictions of his life. 00:05:23.459 --> 00:05:26.720 He started as a self -proclaimed fire -breathing 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:30.139 populist. Really? His editorial stance was aggressively 00:05:30.139 --> 00:05:33.399 anti -corruption. He'd run these long, detailed 00:05:33.399 --> 00:05:37.519 exposés on municipal and financial rot. And here's 00:05:37.519 --> 00:05:40.680 the kicker. He even attacked companies his own 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:43.540 family had financial interests in. Wow. So he 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:45.600 was willing to bite the hand that fed him. For 00:05:45.600 --> 00:05:48.740 circulation and for the cause. He used the paper 00:05:48.740 --> 00:05:51.300 to speak for the working class, to denounce the 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:53.660 rich elite, the very class he belonged to. It 00:05:53.660 --> 00:05:56.180 was pure progressive movement stuff. And it was 00:05:56.180 --> 00:05:59.100 wildly effective. He dominated the San Francisco 00:05:59.100 --> 00:06:01.459 market in just a few years. It was his training 00:06:01.459 --> 00:06:03.759 ground. Okay. So San Francisco was just practice. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:06.079 The main event was always going to be New York 00:06:06.079 --> 00:06:08.120 City. Absolutely. He knew a national empire. 00:06:10.640 --> 00:06:14.259 So in 1895, he makes the leap. He does. He's 00:06:14.259 --> 00:06:17.379 32. His father had passed away. And the real 00:06:17.379 --> 00:06:19.699 fuel for this expansion came from his widowed 00:06:19.699 --> 00:06:22.439 mother, Phoebe, and her deep pockets. With her 00:06:22.439 --> 00:06:25.319 money, he buys the failing New York Morning Journal. 00:06:25.720 --> 00:06:28.819 A penny paper. Right. Selling for just one cent. 00:06:29.019 --> 00:06:31.319 Aimed squarely at the working class and immigrant 00:06:31.319 --> 00:06:33.870 population. And he doesn't just, you know. try 00:06:33.870 --> 00:06:36.750 to compete, he goes straight for the throat of 00:06:36.750 --> 00:06:39.430 the man who basically invented the modern mass 00:06:39.430 --> 00:06:42.990 market newspaper, Joseph Pulitzer. It was an 00:06:42.990 --> 00:06:45.870 immediate, brutal, no -holds -barred circulation 00:06:45.870 --> 00:06:49.529 war. And Hearst's first move was a massive, expensive 00:06:49.529 --> 00:06:52.889 raid on Pulitzer's best people, a talent heist 00:06:52.889 --> 00:06:55.149 on an unheard -of scale. Who are the key figures 00:06:55.149 --> 00:06:57.769 he managed to steal away? He got Pulitzer's three 00:06:57.769 --> 00:07:01.019 top editors. sunday editor moral goddard solomon 00:07:01.019 --> 00:07:03.560 carvalho and a young arthur brisbane who became 00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:05.819 a key figure in the hearst empire for decades 00:07:05.819 --> 00:07:08.600 he also got writers like stephen crane but the 00:07:08.600 --> 00:07:10.959 biggest raid the one that gave the whole arrow 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:13.180 its infamous name was when he stole the sunday 00:07:13.180 --> 00:07:16.000 staff including the cartoonist richard f outcalt 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:18.060 that was the kill shot outcalt was the creator 00:07:18.060 --> 00:07:20.819 of the wildly popular comic strip character the 00:07:20.819 --> 00:07:24.300 yellow kid So Hearst literally stole the mascot 00:07:24.300 --> 00:07:26.759 of Pulitzer's Sunday paper. He did. And for a 00:07:26.759 --> 00:07:30.560 while, it was absurd. Pulitzer hired a new cartoonist 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:33.579 to draw the yellow kid for the world while Outcalt 00:07:33.579 --> 00:07:36.300 drew him for the journal. You had two yellow 00:07:36.300 --> 00:07:39.220 kids in New York, which just perfectly symbolizes 00:07:39.220 --> 00:07:42.079 the insanity of this war. And this is the crucible 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:44.620 of yellow journalism. What was Hearst's recipe 00:07:44.620 --> 00:07:47.379 for success in this fight? Massive, immediate 00:07:47.379 --> 00:07:49.899 emotional appeal, things the traditional papers 00:07:49.899 --> 00:07:52.800 found vulgar. He printed these giant screaming 00:07:52.800 --> 00:07:55.740 headlines over lurid stories about crime, corruption, 00:07:55.959 --> 00:07:59.139 sex, innuendo. The goal was to shock and entertain. 00:07:59.500 --> 00:08:01.720 And Pulitzer had to react. He was forced to. 00:08:02.089 --> 00:08:04.569 The world was selling for two cents. To compete, 00:08:04.709 --> 00:08:06.670 Pulitzer had to drop his price to a penny, too, 00:08:06.769 --> 00:08:08.889 which just doubled the intensity and the financial 00:08:08.889 --> 00:08:11.209 cost of the war. It was a race to the bottom 00:08:11.209 --> 00:08:14.089 on price and a race to the spectacular on content. 00:08:14.269 --> 00:08:16.910 It sounds like a truly nasty environment. And 00:08:16.910 --> 00:08:19.290 yet the sources say Hearst was actually a pretty 00:08:19.290 --> 00:08:21.329 good boss. That's another great contradiction. 00:08:21.529 --> 00:08:24.970 He was known to be generous and unfailingly polite 00:08:24.970 --> 00:08:28.209 to his staff. He paid way more than his competitors, 00:08:28.430 --> 00:08:30.610 which is how he got the best talent. And he gave 00:08:30.610 --> 00:08:33.370 them page one bylines, a huge status symbol at 00:08:33.370 --> 00:08:36.649 the time. And he was tolerant of artistic temperament. 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:39.299 Incredibly tolerant. The sources say he indulged 00:08:39.299 --> 00:08:42.740 prima donnas, eccentrics, bohemians, drunks, 00:08:42.740 --> 00:08:46.019 or reprobates. He didn't care about their personal 00:08:46.019 --> 00:08:48.659 lives as long as they delivered compelling, sellable 00:08:48.659 --> 00:08:51.299 copy. Output over everything else. Pretty much. 00:08:51.519 --> 00:08:53.860 So let's define yellow journalism a bit more 00:08:53.860 --> 00:08:56.320 clearly. We know the name comes from the comic. 00:08:56.500 --> 00:09:00.120 It's about sensationalism, drama, which critics 00:09:00.120 --> 00:09:03.179 called cheap. But Hearst had a motto for it, 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:05.399 right? He did. While others talk, the journal 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:08.419 acts. That speaks to his whole activist approach. 00:09:08.639 --> 00:09:10.480 It wasn't just about reporting the news. It was 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:12.320 about making things happen. But there's a more 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:14.039 intellectual defense of this philosophy, isn't 00:09:14.039 --> 00:09:16.080 there, from the historian Kenneth White? There 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:19.059 is, and it's fascinating. White argued that instead 00:09:19.059 --> 00:09:21.379 of just racing to the bottom, Hearst actually 00:09:21.379 --> 00:09:23.940 drove the penny press upmarket in terms of engagement. 00:09:24.639 --> 00:09:27.620 Upmarket. How could screaming headlines about 00:09:27.620 --> 00:09:30.460 a murder be upmarket? White's point is that good 00:09:30.460 --> 00:09:32.500 yellow journalists sought the human in every 00:09:32.500 --> 00:09:35.139 story. They focused on things with immediate, 00:09:35.320 --> 00:09:38.519 relatable human stakes. The exploitation of working 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:41.460 women, brutal police tactics, corrupt city contracts, 00:09:41.799 --> 00:09:44.440 stories the highbrow papers ignored. So they 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:47.200 were appealing to gut instincts. Exactly. They 00:09:47.200 --> 00:09:49.740 believed that this emotional appeal was an honest 00:09:49.740 --> 00:09:52.139 way to communicate. And the core justification 00:09:52.139 --> 00:09:55.220 was that our emotions, they tend to ignite our 00:09:55.220 --> 00:09:57.779 intellects. A story that makes you feel outrage 00:09:57.779 --> 00:10:00.340 is more likely to make you think and act than 00:10:00.340 --> 00:10:03.019 a dry, objective report. That's a pretty remarkable 00:10:03.019 --> 00:10:05.759 justification for maximizing drama. It is. But 00:10:05.759 --> 00:10:08.279 this war with Pulitzer. It had to have cost a 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:10.620 fortune, an astronomical amount. He was basically 00:10:10.620 --> 00:10:13.039 burning through his mother's mining money. He 00:10:13.039 --> 00:10:15.399 likely lost millions in just the first three 00:10:15.399 --> 00:10:18.000 years, which would be an unimaginable sum today. 00:10:18.200 --> 00:10:20.200 But it worked. It worked. The journal finally 00:10:20.200 --> 00:10:23.159 became profitable after the two papers. Exhausted, 00:10:23.200 --> 00:10:26.340 declared a truce in late 1898. And that truce 00:10:26.340 --> 00:10:28.220 came right around the time of the Spanish -American 00:10:28.220 --> 00:10:31.259 War, an event that is permanently tied to the 00:10:31.259 --> 00:10:33.639 Hearst legend. It is. The morning journal circulation 00:10:33.639 --> 00:10:37.039 just exploded. It went over a million daily after 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:39.340 the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor. 00:10:39.600 --> 00:10:42.480 The conflict was often called the Journal's War. 00:10:42.679 --> 00:10:45.120 How much influence did his paper actually have 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:48.200 in starting it? Immense influence in provoking 00:10:48.200 --> 00:10:50.779 American outrage. The coverage leading up to 00:10:50.779 --> 00:10:53.980 the war was just relentless, aggressive sensationalism. 00:10:54.039 --> 00:10:57.220 The Yellow Papers, led by the Journal, ran these 00:10:57.220 --> 00:11:00.200 huge headlines blaming sabotage for the Maine's 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:02.860 explosion with zero evidence. And they focused 00:11:02.860 --> 00:11:05.759 on Spanish atrocities in Cuba. They framed it 00:11:05.759 --> 00:11:08.460 like a horror story. They covered the Reconcentrado 00:11:08.460 --> 00:11:11.059 policy, where the Spanish general Whaler, they 00:11:11.059 --> 00:11:13.740 called him the butcher, forced Cubans into concentration 00:11:13.740 --> 00:11:16.100 camps. The journal covered this relentlessly, 00:11:16.279 --> 00:11:19.419 often exaggerating the numbers, emotionalizing 00:11:19.419 --> 00:11:21.799 the tragedy to the absolute maximum. Which leads 00:11:21.799 --> 00:11:25.320 that famous, maybe mythical anecdote, the cable 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:27.440 to his illustrator, Frederick Remington. Please 00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:29.320 remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish 00:11:29.320 --> 00:11:31.840 the war. It's the perfect soundbite for a media 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:35.029 manipulator. It is. But historians largely reject 00:11:35.029 --> 00:11:36.950 his claims that he single -handedly started the 00:11:36.950 --> 00:11:40.470 war. They see it as a gross exaggeration. While 00:11:40.470 --> 00:11:43.129 the journal was definitely one -sided and full 00:11:43.129 --> 00:11:45.909 of errors, the national outrage stemmed more 00:11:45.909 --> 00:11:48.409 from the verifiable reality of Spain's brutality 00:11:48.409 --> 00:11:51.909 than just the melodrama in the New York papers. 00:11:52.149 --> 00:11:54.769 So the yellow press poured gasoline on a fire 00:11:54.769 --> 00:11:56.350 that was already burning. That's a great way 00:11:56.350 --> 00:11:58.490 to put it. And Hearst was personally all in. 00:11:58.879 --> 00:12:01.340 He sailed to Cuba himself with a small army of 00:12:01.340 --> 00:12:04.039 reporters and printing equipment. He was totally 00:12:04.039 --> 00:12:06.220 committed to the cause. And this media success, 00:12:06.519 --> 00:12:08.899 this national profile he built during the war, 00:12:08.960 --> 00:12:11.840 it bled directly into political ambition. It 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.240 did. To help with that, he started expanding 00:12:14.240 --> 00:12:17.320 his empire papers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston. 00:12:17.639 --> 00:12:21.179 At his peak, he had 28 dailies nationwide, and 00:12:21.179 --> 00:12:23.039 he used that power to launch his own political 00:12:23.039 --> 00:12:26.340 career. Which was... Not so successful. Largely 00:12:26.340 --> 00:12:28.919 a story of dramatic failures. He did get elected 00:12:28.919 --> 00:12:31.259 twice to the U .S. House as a Democrat, from 00:12:31.259 --> 00:12:34.440 1903 to 1907. But he had to make a deal with 00:12:34.440 --> 00:12:36.860 Tammany Hall to do it. Wait, Tammany Hall? Yeah. 00:12:36.940 --> 00:12:39.620 The very model of the corrupt city machine he 00:12:39.620 --> 00:12:42.000 supposedly fought against. The ultimate irony, 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:44.340 right? He made a bargain with the devil for their 00:12:44.340 --> 00:12:47.240 organizational power. But it didn't last. And 00:12:47.240 --> 00:12:50.840 his runs for higher office were just... Disastrous. 00:12:51.080 --> 00:12:53.419 Utterly. He failed in a run for president in 00:12:53.419 --> 00:12:56.360 1904. He failed to become mayor of New York City 00:12:56.360 --> 00:12:59.720 in 1905 and 1909. And he failed to win the governorship 00:12:59.720 --> 00:13:02.240 of New York in 1906. Earning him the nickname 00:13:02.240 --> 00:13:05.899 William Also Randolph Hearst. Exactly. And this 00:13:05.899 --> 00:13:09.440 string of defeats led to a profound shift. He 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:11.399 started on the left wing of the progressive movement, 00:13:11.519 --> 00:13:14.120 but his entire political outlook was about to 00:13:14.120 --> 00:13:16.879 change. This is the great political pivot. After 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:19.320 World War I, after the rise of Bolshevism, he 00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:21.409 moved. moves hard to the right. Gradually but 00:13:21.409 --> 00:13:23.850 decisively, he becomes a militant nationalist 00:13:23.850 --> 00:13:26.730 and a rabid, uncompromising anti -communist. 00:13:26.789 --> 00:13:29.129 And his papers become the loudest voice for American 00:13:29.129 --> 00:13:31.669 isolationism. That became central to his platform. 00:13:31.990 --> 00:13:34.210 He was deeply suspicious of any international 00:13:34.210 --> 00:13:36.429 entanglement, like the League of Nations. He 00:13:36.429 --> 00:13:38.029 promoted strict non -involvement in European 00:13:38.029 --> 00:13:40.509 affairs, even emblazoning America first on his 00:13:40.509 --> 00:13:42.769 mastheads. Which makes his initial support for 00:13:42.769 --> 00:13:46.230 Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 so interesting. 00:13:46.779 --> 00:13:49.620 He backed FDR's nomination, but he did it based 00:13:49.620 --> 00:13:52.419 on a completely wrong reading of the man. He 00:13:52.419 --> 00:13:54.179 thought he was getting a properly conservative 00:13:54.179 --> 00:13:57.620 leader who would stabilize things but not interfere 00:13:57.620 --> 00:14:00.019 too much with business. He even influenced the 00:14:00.019 --> 00:14:02.460 choice of the running mate. He did. He pushed 00:14:02.460 --> 00:14:05.100 for John Nance Garner, a conservative Texan who 00:14:05.100 --> 00:14:08.220 preached America first and hated socialism. But 00:14:08.220 --> 00:14:10.820 that alliance with FDR didn't last long at all. 00:14:10.919 --> 00:14:14.179 It blew up by the spring of 1935. The scope of 00:14:14.179 --> 00:14:16.679 the New Deal became clear and Hearst turned on 00:14:16.679 --> 00:14:19.100 him. He called the New Deal's relief program 00:14:19.100 --> 00:14:22.779 more communistic than the communist and un -American 00:14:22.779 --> 00:14:25.039 to the core. His papers backed the Republican 00:14:25.039 --> 00:14:27.919 in 36. They did. But here's the reality check. 00:14:28.179 --> 00:14:30.539 Hearst's massive working class readership, the 00:14:30.539 --> 00:14:32.779 very people he courted, overwhelmingly backed 00:14:32.779 --> 00:14:35.639 Roosevelt. It showed even his enormous influence 00:14:35.639 --> 00:14:37.740 had its limits. And his international coverage 00:14:37.740 --> 00:14:39.820 around this time became maybe the most controversial 00:14:39.820 --> 00:14:42.620 part of his career, especially regarding Nazi 00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:45.360 Germany. It's a very complicated and ethically 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:47.799 fraught chapter. The sources say he condemned 00:14:47.799 --> 00:14:50.340 the domestic practices of Nazism, like the oppression 00:14:50.340 --> 00:14:53.720 of religious groups. But geopolitically, he saw 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:56.440 German demands for restoring territory lost after 00:14:56.440 --> 00:14:58.919 World War One as legitimate. He seems to have 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:01.240 accepted German propaganda pretty readily. He 00:15:01.240 --> 00:15:04.080 did. He instructed his reporters in Germany to 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:06.980 give positive coverage and even fired ones who 00:15:06.980 --> 00:15:10.940 refused. And most staggeringly, his papers ran 00:15:10.940 --> 00:15:13.879 columns by high ranking Nazis. like Herman Goering 00:15:13.879 --> 00:15:16.039 and Alfred Rosenberg. Without rebuttal. Without 00:15:16.039 --> 00:15:19.710 rebuttal. Now, he did visit Hitler in 1934 and 00:15:19.710 --> 00:15:22.870 supposedly challenged him on democracy. And after 00:15:22.870 --> 00:15:26.090 Kristallnacht in 1938, his papers did denounce 00:15:26.090 --> 00:15:28.250 Hitler's brutal oppression. But then he flipped 00:15:28.250 --> 00:15:30.990 again. He did. Once Germany invaded the Soviet 00:15:30.990 --> 00:15:34.110 Union in 1941, his anti -communism took over 00:15:34.110 --> 00:15:36.409 completely. He published a column calling Hitler 00:15:36.409 --> 00:15:39.110 the savior of Europe from communism. It just 00:15:39.110 --> 00:15:41.269 shows his overriding priority was always anti 00:15:41.269 --> 00:15:43.750 -communism and isolationism. The other major 00:15:43.750 --> 00:15:46.070 international controversy was the Holodomor. 00:15:46.299 --> 00:15:48.799 the Ukrainian famine. And this also tied directly 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:51.620 into his fight against FDR. A classic example 00:15:51.620 --> 00:15:54.059 of using a human tragedy for political ends. 00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:57.240 To oppose FDR's policy of establishing diplomatic 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:00.779 relations with the USSR, Hearst ordered his editors 00:16:00.779 --> 00:16:03.759 to aggressively reprint eyewitness accounts of 00:16:03.759 --> 00:16:05.460 the famine. Where did he get these accounts? 00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:08.620 From a Welsh journalist named Gareth Jones and 00:16:08.620 --> 00:16:10.960 a disillusioned American communist, Fred Beale. 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:13.840 Hearst used the tragedy to portray the Soviet 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:17.440 Union as a monstrous, starving entity that was 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:20.159 unfit for American recognition. Which put him 00:16:20.159 --> 00:16:22.000 in direct conflict with the New York Times. It 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:24.159 did. The Times was generally promoting better 00:16:24.159 --> 00:16:26.299 relations with Moscow, and their correspondent, 00:16:26.720 --> 00:16:29.519 Walter Durante, printed blanket denials of the 00:16:29.519 --> 00:16:31.860 famine, calling the reports a politically motivated 00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:35.019 scare story. Paris Papers might have manipulated 00:16:35.019 --> 00:16:37.159 the timeline a bit. Critics noted the famine 00:16:37.159 --> 00:16:39.960 was updated in his papers, creating the false 00:16:39.960 --> 00:16:42.259 impression that mass starvation was continuing 00:16:42.259 --> 00:16:45.879 into 1934, long after the worst had passed. It 00:16:45.879 --> 00:16:49.039 just highlights that core contradiction. Crusading 00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:51.320 for truth at home, but willing to distort it 00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:53.799 for political expediency abroad? That political 00:16:53.799 --> 00:16:56.740 act brings us to the man himself. His private 00:16:56.740 --> 00:16:59.460 life was just as dramatic, especially his family 00:16:59.460 --> 00:17:02.460 and his incredible mania for collecting. Absolutely. 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:05.720 He married Millicent Wilson, a 21 -year -old 00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:09.079 chorus girl in 1903. They had five sons. But 00:17:09.079 --> 00:17:11.500 the marriage fell apart because of his longstanding 00:17:12.009 --> 00:17:14.430 Very public affair with the actress Marion Davies. 00:17:14.509 --> 00:17:16.910 It did. He was obsessed with her career, even 00:17:16.910 --> 00:17:19.329 started a film studio, Cosmopolitan Pictures, 00:17:19.410 --> 00:17:21.529 mostly to promote her. And they separated from 00:17:21.529 --> 00:17:24.109 Mellison but never divorced. Correct. She remained 00:17:24.109 --> 00:17:26.529 legally married to him until his death, but she 00:17:26.529 --> 00:17:28.430 built an entirely independent and impressive 00:17:28.430 --> 00:17:31.130 life for herself in New York as a philanthropist. 00:17:31.190 --> 00:17:33.730 She founded the Free Milk Fund for Babies in 00:17:33.730 --> 00:17:37.769 1921, which ran for decades, a powerful counter 00:17:37.769 --> 00:17:40.819 -narrative to her husband's image. Meanwhile, 00:17:40.819 --> 00:17:43.319 Hearst was living openly with Marion Davies in 00:17:43.319 --> 00:17:45.559 California, and they had one of the best -kept 00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:48.559 secrets in Hollywood. They did. Marion Davies 00:17:48.559 --> 00:17:50.599 had a woman named Patricia Lake, who was always 00:17:50.599 --> 00:17:53.500 presented as her niece. The truth only came out 00:17:53.500 --> 00:17:56.500 after Lake's death in 1993. Her family confirmed 00:17:56.500 --> 00:17:58.720 she was, in fact, the biological daughter of 00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:01.529 Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Wow. 00:18:01.789 --> 00:18:04.509 Okay, let's talk about the incredible mania for 00:18:04.509 --> 00:18:06.990 building and collecting. This is where the Citizen 00:18:06.990 --> 00:18:09.710 King comparisons really start to hit home. The 00:18:09.710 --> 00:18:12.630 extravagance was just unparalleled. It's almost 00:18:12.630 --> 00:18:15.890 beyond comprehension. In 1919, he starts construction 00:18:15.890 --> 00:18:19.289 on what he called La Cuesta Encantada, the enchanted 00:18:19.289 --> 00:18:22.109 hill near San Simeon, California, Hearst Castle. 00:18:22.329 --> 00:18:25.880 On 250 ,000 acres of land. An estate with a main 00:18:25.880 --> 00:18:29.140 building, three massive guest houses and an entire 00:18:29.140 --> 00:18:31.480 zoo. And it was never finished in his lifetime. 00:18:31.839 --> 00:18:34.460 Construction just went on for 28 years. And what 00:18:34.460 --> 00:18:36.960 made it so unique wasn't just the size. It was 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:39.380 how he furnished it. He was literally buying 00:18:39.380 --> 00:18:41.880 and importing the past. The mansion was filled 00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:44.819 with art, antiques and get this, entire historic 00:18:44.819 --> 00:18:47.839 rooms that he bought and imported from palaces 00:18:47.839 --> 00:18:49.940 and monasteries across Europe. What kind of things 00:18:49.940 --> 00:18:52.579 are we talking about? Entire Spanish wooden ceilings, 00:18:52.660 --> 00:18:55.819 Renaissance fireplaces. dozens of Roman sarcophagi, 00:18:55.940 --> 00:18:58.460 tens of thousands of yards of oriental carpets. 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:01.220 He had agents scouring Europe, dismantling castles 00:19:01.220 --> 00:19:03.859 to ship the pieces home. The logistics were as 00:19:03.859 --> 00:19:06.460 staggering as the price tag. And San Simeon wasn't 00:19:06.460 --> 00:19:09.319 enough. He had other massive properties. Wintune 00:19:09.319 --> 00:19:12.019 in Northern California, the Beverly House Mansion 00:19:12.019 --> 00:19:14.920 in Beverly Hills. And he bought a castle in Wales 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:18.319 as a gift for Marion Davies. An impulse buy. 00:19:18.910 --> 00:19:21.630 St. Donuts Castle. He saw it in a magazine and 00:19:21.630 --> 00:19:24.490 just bought it. He spent a fortune renovating 00:19:24.490 --> 00:19:27.789 it, installed 34 marble bathrooms. And moved 00:19:27.789 --> 00:19:30.329 an entire great hall from another priory, brick 00:19:30.329 --> 00:19:33.349 by brick. Yes, from Bradenstoke Priory. Meticulously 00:19:33.349 --> 00:19:36.289 dismantled, shipped, and reconstructed at St. 00:19:36.349 --> 00:19:39.150 Donuts. He hosted parties there for Charlie Chaplin, 00:19:39.289 --> 00:19:42.029 Winston Churchill, a young JFK. He was assembling 00:19:42.029 --> 00:19:45.049 one of the most vast and varied private art collections 00:19:45.049 --> 00:19:48.950 in the world. Impossibly vast. Greek vases, medieval 00:19:48.950 --> 00:19:51.869 suits of armor, Spanish furniture. His library 00:19:51.869 --> 00:19:54.289 had books signed by their authors. The sources 00:19:54.289 --> 00:19:56.369 even mention he owned Thomas Jefferson's Bible 00:19:56.369 --> 00:19:58.650 and George Washington's waistcoat. And the tragic 00:19:58.650 --> 00:20:01.349 irony is that this reckless extravagance happened 00:20:01.349 --> 00:20:03.569 right up until the spectacular collapse of his 00:20:03.569 --> 00:20:05.829 empire during the Great Depression. The financial 00:20:05.829 --> 00:20:08.089 disaster was immense. It was a direct result 00:20:08.089 --> 00:20:11.009 of overextension, the Depression, union strikes, 00:20:11.210 --> 00:20:14.690 but mostly his refusal to stop spending. He just 00:20:14.690 --> 00:20:17.049 could not stop buying art and building things, 00:20:17.210 --> 00:20:19.930 even as his company was bleeding cash. It sounds 00:20:19.930 --> 00:20:22.150 exactly like Charles Foster Kane refusing to 00:20:22.150 --> 00:20:26.349 face reality. It was. Finally, in 1937, his creditors 00:20:26.349 --> 00:20:29.099 forced his hand. The Hearst Corporation faced 00:20:29.099 --> 00:20:32.279 a court mandated reorganization and Hearst, the 00:20:32.279 --> 00:20:34.440 monarch of the dailies, was reduced to being 00:20:34.440 --> 00:20:36.640 an employee of his own company. And this is where 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:39.380 Marion Davies steps in as his savior. It's a 00:20:39.380 --> 00:20:41.920 critical part of the story. To stave off bankruptcy, 00:20:42.220 --> 00:20:44.539 she sold everything, all her jewelry, stocks, 00:20:44.940 --> 00:20:48.259 bonds, to give Hearst a $1 million loan. She 00:20:48.259 --> 00:20:50.539 even raised another million from a rival publisher. 00:20:50.819 --> 00:20:52.640 And he had to start paying rent to live at San 00:20:52.640 --> 00:20:55.559 Simeon. The ultimate humiliation. His salary 00:20:55.559 --> 00:20:59.279 was slashed from $500 ,000 a year to $100 ,000. 00:20:59.420 --> 00:21:01.079 And what happened to that incredible collection? 00:21:01.420 --> 00:21:05.220 A massive, humiliating fire sale. Thousands of 00:21:05.220 --> 00:21:07.400 items were sold off in auctions between 1938 00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:11.500 and 1939. Priceless tapestries, Greek sculpture, 00:21:11.819 --> 00:21:15.299 the entire contents of St. Donut's Castle. And 00:21:15.299 --> 00:21:17.299 because of the depressed market, he often sold 00:21:17.299 --> 00:21:19.640 them at a steep loss. Despite that financial 00:21:19.640 --> 00:21:22.519 collapse, his ultimate legacy often comes back 00:21:22.519 --> 00:21:25.099 to fiction. We have to talk about his great American 00:21:25.099 --> 00:21:28.160 antagonist, Citizen Kane. The film, released 00:21:28.160 --> 00:21:31.380 in 1941, was a devastating cinematic interpretation. 00:21:32.299 --> 00:21:35.220 Kane's estate, Xanadu, was clearly Hearst Castle. 00:21:35.619 --> 00:21:37.759 Now, the character of Kane was a composite of 00:21:37.759 --> 00:21:39.759 several moguls, but Hearst didn't see it that 00:21:39.759 --> 00:21:42.440 way. No, he was enraged. He saw it as a thinly 00:21:42.440 --> 00:21:45.559 disguised, viciously unflattering portrait, especially 00:21:45.559 --> 00:21:47.440 of his relationship with Marion Davies. And he 00:21:47.440 --> 00:21:49.519 reacted with the full force of his empire without 00:21:49.519 --> 00:21:51.859 even having seen the movie. He ordered a total 00:21:51.859 --> 00:21:53.980 news blackout on the film and all his papers 00:21:53.980 --> 00:21:56.000 and radio stations. He pressured theater chains 00:21:56.000 --> 00:21:57.960 to refuse to... show it. And that pressure worked, 00:21:58.039 --> 00:22:00.839 at least at first. It did. It severely hurt the 00:22:00.839 --> 00:22:03.579 film's box office numbers and damaged Orson Welles' 00:22:03.619 --> 00:22:06.039 career at the time. But the great historical 00:22:06.039 --> 00:22:08.579 irony is that the film he tried to bury is now 00:22:08.579 --> 00:22:10.740 considered one of the greatest movies ever made, 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:13.680 ensuring his fictionalized life outlived his 00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:16.539 political one. And the film cemented this reputation. 00:22:17.099 --> 00:22:19.859 But the list of legitimate criticisms against 00:22:19.859 --> 00:22:23.450 the real Hearst is extensive. It is. On journalistic 00:22:23.450 --> 00:22:26.569 ethics, critics noted he routinely invented sensational 00:22:26.569 --> 00:22:29.589 stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures, 00:22:29.670 --> 00:22:32.569 and distorted real events. It was a calculated 00:22:32.569 --> 00:22:34.869 strategy to sell papers and push his agenda. 00:22:35.450 --> 00:22:37.849 And that manipulation often extended into really 00:22:37.849 --> 00:22:40.329 serious issues like racial bias. Absolutely. 00:22:40.589 --> 00:22:42.690 The anti -Asian racism on the West Coast was 00:22:42.690 --> 00:22:45.269 systematically fanned by his papers. And that 00:22:45.269 --> 00:22:48.150 prejudice continued into the 1940s when he staunchly 00:22:48.150 --> 00:22:50.289 supported the Japanese -American internment during 00:22:50.289 --> 00:22:52.809 World War II, using his media power to build 00:22:52.809 --> 00:22:54.910 support for it. And then there's the story of 00:22:54.910 --> 00:22:57.470 cannabis prohibition, which perfectly fuses his 00:22:57.470 --> 00:23:00.119 self -interest with his media power. A perfect 00:23:00.119 --> 00:23:02.779 example. He collaborated directly with Harry 00:23:02.779 --> 00:23:05.220 J. Anslinger, the head of the Federal Narcotics 00:23:05.220 --> 00:23:09.759 Bureau, to ban hemp. His papers ran all the classic 00:23:09.759 --> 00:23:12.619 reefer madness style fear mongering stories. 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:15.410 Why? Because of the paper industry. Exactly. 00:23:15.670 --> 00:23:18.950 The new hemp paper industry posed a direct threat 00:23:18.950 --> 00:23:21.390 to his massive investments in the traditional 00:23:21.390 --> 00:23:25.150 wood pulp paper milling industry. So his sensationalistic 00:23:25.150 --> 00:23:28.569 crusade, cloaked in anti -drug propaganda, was 00:23:28.569 --> 00:23:30.470 really about protecting his corporate interests. 00:23:30.769 --> 00:23:32.750 So let's conclude with his final years. Did the 00:23:32.750 --> 00:23:34.789 empire ever fully recover from the collapse? 00:23:35.150 --> 00:23:37.630 It did, thanks to the wartime economy. The Hearst 00:23:37.630 --> 00:23:39.829 Company returned to strong profitability during 00:23:39.829 --> 00:23:42.289 World War II due to skyrocketing advertising 00:23:42.289 --> 00:23:45.519 revenue. And he died in 1951. Yes, in Beverly 00:23:45.519 --> 00:23:49.039 Hills at age 88. His will established two charitable 00:23:49.039 --> 00:23:51.559 trusts to control the stock, ensuring the company 00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:54.000 remained privately held. And Marion Davies briefly 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:56.460 had a controlling interest. She did. She inherited 00:23:56.460 --> 00:23:59.720 170 ,000 shares, which, with an existing trust, 00:23:59.900 --> 00:24:02.319 gave her control. But she later relinquished 00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:04.420 the large block of shares back to the corporation. 00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:07.380 And his sons. Did they follow him into the business? 00:24:07.819 --> 00:24:10.799 They all did with mixed results. Curiously, none 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:13.420 of his five sons graduated from college, but 00:24:13.420 --> 00:24:16.200 they all went into media. And his namesake, William 00:24:16.200 --> 00:24:19.299 Randolph Jr., even became a Pulitzer Prize winning 00:24:19.299 --> 00:24:22.259 reporter, maybe trying to bring a level of respectability 00:24:22.259 --> 00:24:24.980 that often eluded his father. So what does this 00:24:24.980 --> 00:24:28.200 all mean? Our deep dive reveals Hearst as a figure 00:24:28.200 --> 00:24:31.740 just, defined by these spectacular contradictions. 00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.299 He was a self -proclaimed populist who lived 00:24:34.299 --> 00:24:37.180 like royalty in castles, a crusading journalist 00:24:37.180 --> 00:24:39.380 who attacked corruption while often inventing 00:24:39.380 --> 00:24:41.460 the news. And a political kingmaker who couldn't 00:24:41.460 --> 00:24:43.799 win an election for himself. But what's fascinating 00:24:43.799 --> 00:24:46.900 is the lasting impact of his methods. He established 00:24:46.900 --> 00:24:49.819 this dangerous but undeniably effective blueprint 00:24:49.819 --> 00:24:52.980 for media engagement, one that prioritized raw 00:24:52.980 --> 00:24:56.160 emotional appeal over sober fact. He believed 00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:58.380 that feelings tend to ignite our intellects. 00:24:58.380 --> 00:25:00.940 That melodrama was the path to getting people 00:25:00.940 --> 00:25:03.359 to think. Exactly. So I'll leave you with this 00:25:03.359 --> 00:25:05.920 final thought. Hearst had to spend millions to 00:25:05.920 --> 00:25:08.440 steal a cartoonist and slash prices to a penny 00:25:08.440 --> 00:25:11.640 to win his circulation war. Today, algorithms 00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:14.240 and social media deliver that same emotional 00:25:14.240 --> 00:25:17.079 spectacle, that same yellow journalism strategy 00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:20.680 directly to your screen, instantly and for free. 00:25:20.819 --> 00:25:23.799 A terrifying thought. If Hearst proved that igniting 00:25:23.799 --> 00:25:26.299 intellects through feelings is the key to massive 00:25:26.299 --> 00:25:29.160 influence, where do we see that precise strategy 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:32.329 most aggressively employed today? Every source, 00:25:32.470 --> 00:25:34.930 from cable news to a viral video, is fighting 00:25:34.930 --> 00:25:37.250 for your attention just as fiercely as the journal 00:25:37.250 --> 00:25:39.890 fought the world a century ago. The tools have 00:25:39.890 --> 00:25:42.390 changed, but the emotional manipulation strategy, 00:25:42.690 --> 00:25:44.789 honed by William Randolph Hearst, remains the 00:25:44.789 --> 00:25:47.170 essential operating principle. A compelling and 00:25:47.170 --> 00:25:49.390 frankly chilling thought to end on. Thank you 00:25:49.390 --> 00:25:51.369 for diving deep with us today. Keep exploring.