The Uncrowned King
The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst
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- 115,00 kr
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- 115,00 kr
Publisher Description
“I’ve been watching him, and I notice that when he wants cake, he wants cake; and he wants it now. And I notice that after a while he gets his cake.” –Senator George Hearst, on his son, William Randolph Hearst
A lively, unexpected and impeccably researched piece of popular history, The Uncrowned King reveals how an unheralded young newspaperman from San Francisco walked into the media capital of the world and created the most successful daily of his time, pushing the medium to an unprecedented level of excitement and influence, and leading serious observers to wonder if newspapers might be “the greatest force in civilization,” more powerful even than kings and popes and presidents.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The conventional understanding of newspaper magnate Hearst as haunted megalomaniac, cynical purveyor of prurience and jingoistic instigator of the Spanish-American War gets a major challenge in this scintillating biographical study. Maclean's editor Whyte covers the years from 1895 to 1898, when Hearst took a revamped New York Journal to the top of the newspaper market by way of a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's rival New York World. Whyte styles Hearst a brilliant and creative media entrepreneur with a gift for managing high-strung (and often drunken) subordinates, progressive politics and a sincere social conscience that animated his paper's crusading journalism. Even Hearst's agitation for war with Spain, Whyte contends, was more justifiable and journalistically responsible than is thought and may have helped forestall a "genocide" in Cuba. Whyte considers the "yellow journalism" slur often hurled at Hearst a compliment; he finds the Journal to be "a demanding, sophisticated read" that used emotion and drama to draw readers into reporting of real significance. No slouch himself when it comes to colorful profiles and engrossing narrative, Whyte makes Hearst's rise an entertaining saga of newspapering's heroic age, when the popular press became an unofficial pillar of democracy. Photos.
