Government by Newspaper

Abstract William Randolph Hearst was a formidable force in American life, an awesome power to be reckoned with both in the business and political worlds, a man with a remarkable capacity for reinventing himself no matter how devastating the setbacks. Without question, he was the fore most news media mogul in the United States and throughout the world. During the two decades after 1890 he had enlarged his newspaper empire to include eight publications in five of the largest cities in the United States (New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco), totaling more than 4 million readers, far outdistancing his competitors in circulation and advertising as well as self-promotion. As early as 1902 he had also ventured into the magazine arena; after purchasing Cosmopolitan in 1905, he again proved his marketing wizardry by rapidly attaining a loyal audience of 750,000 readers and a multitude of indulgent advertisers. Hearst was thus girding himself to become even more dominant in the journalistic world through expansion, either by enticing buyouts of poorly run businesses or by engaging in cutthroat competition against rivals.