Institutions & Publications: The San Francisco Examiner and New York Journal

The San Francisco Examiner has been a trusted news source since 1863. The story of this newspaper is actually quite interesting. It all started after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. The Examiner used to be a democratic paper that was pro slavery and anti-Lincoln.  The newspaper offices were destroyed by a pro Lincoln mob after his death.

After this destruction, the newspaper was changed to The Daily Examiner in 1865. It switched to a very republican view with no slavery ties and got rid of the anti- Lincoln ideologies. The paper included worldwide news as well as local and used sensational titles to draw people into the stories. The Examiner became an afternoon paper when they made a deal with The Chronicle, who published the morning paper. The Examiner has won two Pulitzer Prizes in its time and has grown to have an audience of around 500,000 daily readers.

The paper was owned by William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951)who was a big time businessman and today is known for his lead role in yellow journalism. Hearst was born in 1863 and had always dreamed of making it big in the newspaper industry. His father, George Hearst, was the owner of the San Francisco Examiner prior to William and he was able to convince his father to let him take it over.

By the age of 24 he was able to turn the struggling newspaper around. He was able to hire famous writers such as Mark Twain and Jack London to write columns for the paper. 

Within three years Hearst was able to gain a profit from the paper and was cranking out around 55,000 papers daily. The Examiner still exists to this day and they continue to publish daily papers in print and online. 

Hearst died on August 14, 1951. The Hearst Cooperation held onto the Examiner until 2004 in which they sold it to the Fang Family. Since then it has been sold a couple more times and is now owned by  Clint Reilly Communications.

The New York Journal was Hearst's other newspaper that he owned. He used this Paper to continuously compete with New York World. The New York World was his inspiration to buy the San Francisco Examiner so he was thrilled to finally be on the same level.He bought this Paper in 1895 and would use this paper to compete with New York World in hopes to be the most read paper throughout the city.

 He used exaggerated titles, colorful cartoons, and sensationalistic and bias stories filled with lies that made people want to keep buying and reading the paper. This was the first example of yellow journalism; journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration. 

We see which became a style of reporting because of Hearst and his tactics. Each paper would keep creating more exaggerated headlines that they weren't even telling a true story anymore, just doing anything they could do get people to read their paper.

He copied the cartoon of the yellow boy that was in the New York World and even hired the same artist to do the job. This cartoon became known as "the yellow kid" and became the staples of yellow journalism. Hearst was really interested in the Spanish-American war and would constantly put out articles bullying the government to declare war. When the government ignored these stories, Hearst would get even more rude and persuasive to get them involved. 

https://www.sfexaminer.com/site/about.html

https://www.pbs.org/crucible/journalism.html

https://spartacus-educational.com/USAnyjournal.htm

https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/william-randolph-hearst