Newspaper Emperor

Edwin McDowell

“ A Hearst newspaper,” said West brook Pegler’ s father, himself a Hearst writer, “is like a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut”—the difference being that while an injured woman ultimately would be given medical attention, the old-time Hearst papers seldom stopped screaming long enough to undergo corrective surgery. “In the strict sense, the Hearst papers were not newspapers at all,” Mr. Swanberg writes in Citizen Hearst. “They were printed entertainment and excitement—the equivalent in newsprint of bombs exploding, bands blaring, firecrackers popping, victims screaming, flags waving, cannons roaring, houris dancing, and smoke rising from the singed flesh of executed criminals.”

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Edwin McDowell

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Edwin McDowell

“ A Hearst newspaper,” said West brook Pegler’ s father, himself a Hearst writer, “is like a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut”—the difference being that while an injured woman ultimately would be given medical attention, the old-time Hearst papers seldom stopped screaming long enough to undergo corrective surgery. “In the strict sense, the Hearst papers were not newspapers at all,” Mr. Swanberg writes in Citizen Hearst. “They were printed entertainment and excitement—the equivalent in newsprint of bombs exploding, bands blaring, firecrackers popping, victims screaming, flags waving, cannons roaring, houris dancing, and smoke rising from the singed flesh of executed criminals.”