Talk:William Randolph Hearst/Archives/2013

comment
changed the languaging where it previously appeared that Marion Davies was the wife of Hearst and that Orson Welles owned RKO studio. Jay 11:29, Sep 6, 2003 (UTC)

My source for Hearst's having been expelled from Harvard ,for the chamber pot stunt, is Imperial Hearst by Ferdinand Lundberg.Tjc 10:48, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why does this article rely on a book by a Canadian Stalinist that apparently embarrassed even the Canadian Communist Party whose press originally printed it (it was soon withdrawn from circulation) and which has about as much reliability about the Ukrainian faminine as Holocaust deniers have about the Holocaust? See http://www.artukraine.com/famineart/mace16.htm

The family section needs to be re-thought, as it seems at the moment to just be an excuse to mention Patty Hearst. On that subject, Patty Hearst wasn't pardoned by President Carter, she was pardoned by President Clinton shortly before his retirement from presidency. President Carter commuted her sentence. His five sons are mentioned only very briefly, and their families not at all. Patty could be mentioned under her own heading, much like the Thomas Ince affair.

In the media area, it might be of some interest that the character of Hearst appeared briefly in the Little House on the Prairie episode "Odyssey" (Season 5, Episode 21). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.138.110.15 (talk) 19:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Wash Times
Removed Washington Times from the list of newspapers he owned (the Times was started by the Unification Church in the 1980s, way after Hearst's time.)

-

Added Washington Times back to the list of newspapers he owned.

The current Washington Times publication has nothing to do with the previously existing newspaper of the same name, which was established in 1893 and later became the Times-Herald, and then The Post. See 'Notes' under the wiki:Washington Times page.

spanish american war
"Hearst did cause the Spanish-American War of 1898, and he certainly publicized it, trying to sell more copies than his rival Pulitzer."

Hearst caused it? How responsible is that statement?

Not very responsible at all, if you proceed to the yellow journalism article it is explicitly stated that Hearst had NOTHING to do with it. The argument in that article seems rather sound, so ... this is probably an example of yellow journalism. Hearst would be proud! Fluxdk (talk) 20:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

POV
This article is a mess. Not withstanding the above comment about the Spanish-American War (which is absolutely false: see Yellow Journalism), the piece engages in the laziest, most stereotypical discussion of Hearst's politics and journalism without providing any context whatsoever -- for a start:
 * Hearst "routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events." And so did almost every other newspaper of the time; ideas of objectivity had not taken hold in American journalism, and readers expected fiction in their stories (See David Nasaw, The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, p.79).
 * The lead does not summarize the article; it merely lays a litany of attacks on Hearst without summarizing his life or his role in the history of journalism.
 * "While World War II restored circulation and advertising revenues, his great days were over." Er, no.  Hearst papers benefitted from a post-war boom in circulation and were probably as profitable as they had ever been upon his death in 1951.
 * "Conceding an end to his political hopes, Hearst became involved in an affair with popular film actress and comedienne Marion Davies (1897–1961), and from about 1919 he lived openly with her in California." I've never read any source that says that Hearst started his affair because his "political hopes" were over.  Not only was it common for rich men to "keep" women (Nasaw, 67),  Nicholas Longworth shows us that one could engage in romantic affairs and still assume political power.  Hearst was a frequent theater-goer, and whatever his reasons for getting into a relationship with Marion Davies, politics was not one of them.
 * "The Self-Serving Lie" -- I have no idea what this is doing in a biography of Hearst; at best, it deserves a single line or movement into an article about marijuana.

Beyond this, the article desperately needs an expanded section on Citizen Kane, the growth of his empire, the New York Journal's 1890 heyday and Hearst's other media outlets (magazines and movies).--Idols of Mud 14:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

POV
The fact that this man published statements about marijuana using his publications to serve his financial needs in a manner that has had reprucussions on MILLIONS of lives is no small fact to be relegated to a topic that will be seen by very few. People need to see what this man did with his papers. A lie perpetrated that I find closely related to my life.

Article is a mess up top
The article is a mess, the first 6 areas is just three topics that are duplicated. I'm going to go ahead and delete the repeated ones Whitesoxfanatic 20:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Harvard?
I read in World Book that he was kicked out of Harvard for a practical joke but it didn't say what if someone knows it would make good trivia

Liberal to Conservative?
"He was a prominent leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party from 1896 to 1935, when he suddenly came to his senses and turned conservative." When he suddenly came to his senses and turned conservative? This doesn't seem very subjective.

Changed the heading to "Falling out with FDR" until actual examples are given. Also, is this liberal->conservative in the circa-2007 sense of those terms? Does this make sense to even apply to this time period? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.238.221.214 (talk) 11:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC).


 * Both points here are good. It's ridiculously opinionated to say he "suddenly came to his senses and turned conservative."  Also, it's true: liberal and conservative implied different things in the 1920s.  I have a biography of Hearst, "The Chief," and I'll mark this on my to-do list of articles that need a lot of TLC from a good source like that. --JayHenry 03:27, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Mother's name
Generally given as Phoebe, but one reference in this article calls her "Sally Hearst". Is this simply a typo? Rickrbj 17:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Most expensive US house on sale
I made a mistake in my first edit add, so I had to undo it by just adding the link at the end of the sentence. His house is now on record us sale. BBC News.

--Florentino floro 08:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hearst and hemp
"was threatened by hemp" is simply not true. The cost per ton i about 6 times higher for paper from hemp. Read the article hemp for more information.--Dala11a 22:07, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Newsflash, this isn't the 1930'sKevin j (talk) 00:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism
The opening paragraphs were plagiarized directly from: 

They need to be rewritten. He owned paper mills, so he was threatened by hemp..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.37.121 (talk) 21:31, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

"many of which will be on view" appears in the article under the art collection section, it appears this section was entirely copied and pasted from another website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.237.172.117 (talk) 12:45, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Later life?
There seems to be nothing in here about his life after WWII. In fact, I don't really see anything after the 1930's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bigmac31 (talk • contribs) 16:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hearst Wealth
Doesn any one know what his net worth was at his peak and what it is currently today? Also what newspapers, magazines etc are still owned by this family name?


 * I have the Hearst biography The Chief by David Nasaw. In 1935 Fortune magazine estimated his worth at $140,000,000.  There's a lot of different ways to adjust for inflation.  According to the westegg calculator, that'd be a little over $2 billion today.  Hearst's wealth was always difficult to assess because he operated an enormous number of companies, and moved his assets around to take out enormous loans.  Nasaw doesn't attempt any other estimates of Hearst's net worth.  The article at Hearst Corporation discusses the properties owned today. --JayHenry (talk) 02:30, 11

February 2008 (UTC)

The hemp conspiracy
The only presented source for this conspiracy is an article from 1916. The rest is opinions by somebody who is not an expert on production of paper with wood pulp.

What happened with the technology for wood-pulp after 1916? From the article about hemp.

"New technology has allowed for more environmentally-friendly paper production from wood pulp, the recovery boiler invented in the early 1930s, ECF (Elemental Chlorine Free), or TCF (Total chlorine Free) bleaching, better fiber filters etc. has created less of a demand for alternative raw materials. Hemp is currently of little significance as raw material for paper, however it is still scarcely grown in the developed world. The long-term price for pulpwood has been low compared with any alternative except recycled paper. More about wood pulp technology in Bleaching of wood pulp."

"There is a niche market for hemp paper, but the cost of hemp pulp is approximately six times that of wood pulp, mostly due to the small size and outdated equipment of the few hemp processing plants in the Western world. Hemp pulp is bleached with hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide can also be used for wood pulp"

- Of the approximately 247 active recovery boilers in the U.S. (in about half as many mills), about 82 have direct contact evaporators (Figure 1). The oldest boilers operating today were commissioned during the mid-1930s.(Pulp & Paper, Feb 1997  by Finchem, Kirk J)

And what happened with the wood pulp industry in the 1930s later in countries where it was legal to harvest hemp? The wood-pulp industry has been the winner everywhere. So if the managers in Hearst not were swindled that hemp was a treat, where is the evidence for that, the theory seems very very unlikely.--Dala11a (talk) 23:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hemp was a treat for the managers in Hearst? I think you meant to say "threat". 173.28.244.122 (talk) 17:15, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

MM linkage
Not sure if this counts, but the story is running tonight on the front page of Newsweek.com. First sentence, first link. If someone thinks it does qualify, add the medialink template (i forget what it is :). //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 02:49, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Family
The Family subsection introduced Patty Hearst, William Randolph Hearst's granddaughter and daughter of Randolph Apperson Hearst. She was born in 1954, three years after the death of William Randolph Hearst, so he never knew her. Having that information in this article is out of chronological order and only serves as sensationalism. Accordingly, I've moved the paragraph to the Randolph Apperson Hearst article. &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 11:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Death
There is no section about the death of Hearst. I know the information is usually unnecessary, but I'd like to point out that it's missing. You know, the typical death section containing how and where and what age and where he's buried. That kind of stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.60.53.5 (talk) 20:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Did Hearst send Billy The Kid to kill Francisco Villa?
At 100 years of the Mexican revolution, there are many comments in the radio in Mexico. Many of them are not done by true historians, but by novelists, journalists, or just aficionados that say they are historians. The main trend is an iconoclastic destruction of the founders of the nation as it is also the 200 years anniversary of the Independence War. In such not reliable propaganda, it was told, that Hears owned a vast territory in the north of Mexico, in partnership of the Creel and Terrazas families. In that territory, he had thousands of hundreds of cows. Francisco Villa, one of the more sincere revolutionaries, stolen cows from time to time for his cause. Tired of that, seeing that the governor of that state did nothing about it, Hearst sent Billy The Kid to kill Villa, for that Billy the Kid changed his name to ??? Kid, and came to accomplish his mission. After knowing Villa, Billy The Kid, noticed the injustice and misery in which that people were living, sympathizing with Villa, not just refraining from killing him, but starting a friendship, it was told in that propaganda, that The Kid tough Villa strategies that later he used in the Mexican Revolution. More or less is what I remember from the comment in the radio, something that I was surprised, because the story was in favor of Villa, one of the more hated heroes in the present ultra right-wing administration whose grant parents were the enemies of Villa who lost their privileges in the Mexican Revolution Movement that they are reverting. So it maybe is a true fact, Villa is neglected as just a roba vacas (cow thieve) by his adversaries. If someone has faithful, trust-able, from reliable historic sources, that supports and this story, it should be added to this entry. Also to Billy The Kid and Francisco Villa entries. This story may be true in part, because Billy The Kid died before Mexican Revolution, but they could meet before 1910, during 19th century. As I mentioned before, there is to much inaccurate propaganda and important omissions about historical facts about the 100 year anniversary of Revolution, 200 year anniversary of Independence War, and the omitted 150 year anniversary of Freedom of Beliefs, because the present regime is mainly supported by the Catholic Church who hates Benito Juarez due to Las Leyes de Reforma. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.178.252.6 (talk) 02:20, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

The myth that hemp could compete with forest as a source for cheep mass production of newsprint
A fact is that large scale production of cheep newsprint from hemp have never existed in any country not in the 1930's and not later in the countries (many) where hemp has been legal. The pulp and paper industry has known that. (User Dala 11a has previously worked in the pulp and paper industry). No know sources show that Hearst saw hemp as a "threat" his forest. The development in Canada after 1998 i just another example that debunks the myth. Government of Alberta: Industrial Hemp Production in Canada, February 2, 2010 Dala11a (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Your link says nothing about Hearst, and so is useless to this article. Binksternet (talk) 22:46, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Hemp redux
Hearst's life was not about hemp. The continued insertion of hemp disputes in this article goes way beyond what defined the man. He was about power, about influence in politics and society. Any business concerns were a means to get there, and whether his yellow journals were written on wood pulp or hemp paper was of trifling importance to him:
 * Citizen Hearst: a biography of William Randolph Hearst (1961) W. A. Swanburg. Nothing about hemp.
 * William Randolph Hearst: Newspaper Magnate (2009) Bonnie Goldsmith. Nothing about hemp.
 * The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (2001) David Nasaw. Nothing about hemp.
 * William Randolph Hearst: final edition, 1911-1951 (2007) Ben H. Procter. Nothing about hemp.
 * Hearst over Hollywood: power, passion, and propaganda in the movies (2002) Louis Pizzitola. Nothing about hemp.
 * W.R. Hearst - An American Phenomenon (2007) George Sanger. Nothing about hemp.

The lack of mention of hemp in the major biographies argues that any mention of hemp is WP:UNDUE emphasis. Binksternet (talk) 03:45, 22 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. For a realistic view of how newspapers in Hearst's era made their paper, see Trees to Tribunes. The Chicago Tribune (not a Hearst paper) had their own forests in Quebec, with their own company towns where their own lumbermen cut trees for their own paper mills, from which paper was shipped on their own fleet of ships to their own printing plant in Tribune Tower in Chicago. There's a fair amount of bogus information about hemp floating around, much of it from Jack Herer. See Talk:Hemp --John Nagle (talk) 17:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Why is this article locked?
...or am I just slow this morning? No lock-icon, and yet -- its Hearst's power and privilege manifesting itself beyond the grave!!! Damn you, Rosebud, and..--anyway, can't we edit this? I've got some valuable input. Really. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Occlusian (talk • contribs) 14:50, 1 May 2011 (UTC)