Podcast: William Randolph Hearst, Radical and Reactionary

Last week, the PBS program American Experience started airing Citizen Hearst, a two-part documentary on the life of William Randolph Hearst, directed by Stephen Ives. If you live in the United States, you can watch it here. (Alas, it’s not available for streaming in other jurisdictions yet, although there are clips on Youtube.) 

I was happy to participate as a talking head in Citizen Hearst, which gives a spirited account of Hearst’s tumultuous career. Hearst was a large man in every sense, a creature of appetite who voraciously chased after experience of all kind and along the way changed journalism and created one of the largest and most far-reaching of media empires.

After watching the documentary, I wanted to chat with my friend Ken Whyte, author of The Uncrowned King, a Hearst biography that has a more positive view of the press baron than many other accounts. In his book, Ken portrays Hearst as a radical who took up many noble causes. I figured Ken would have insights into Hearst and the documentary.

Our wide-ranging conversation covers not just Hearst but the history of 20th century media, the struggle between respectable broadsheets and tabloids, the American populist movement, the Spanish American war, the assassination of William McKinley, the rise of Theodore Roosevelt, the New Deal, Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, and some progressives turning into reactionaries.

(Post edited by Emily M. Keeler)

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