Hearst & Kane

Citizen Kane
& The Life of William Randolph Hearst

• Citizen Kane was an influential newspaper publisher.
• He built his own version of Xanadu. The original was the summer capital of Kublai Khan’s Yuan Dynasty in China, after it was decided that it should be moved to Beijing.
• Xanadu is the fictional estate of Charles Foster Kane. It gets its name from the real ancient Mongolian city Xanadu, known for its splendour.
• Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California, is the obvious inspiration for Xanadu, due to the Hearst/Kane comparison in the film.

In the Film:

• "Cost: no man can say."
  Xanadu is built on a private mountain.
• Kane built it for his second wife Susan.
• Xanadu is used in the opening and closing scenes of the film, it is where Kane dies.
• "Rosebud"
  The meaning of this isn’t fully revealed: it is printed on the sledge he was riding before his mother sent him with her banker Thatcher.

Myth of the American Dream:

• The film was one of the first to depict the American Dream as anything less that desirable.
• When Kane was removed from the securities at home, e.g. fully content playing in the snow at his parents lodge, he is given what could have been considered an American Dream. (Financial affluence and material luxury.) These things however do not make Kane happy.

Materialism

• Kane is a rapacious collector: excessively greedy and grasping: predatory.
• By purchasing so many extravagant goods, Kane attempts to fill a void created by all the people who left him throughout his life. The only meaningful possession he has is the snow globe reminding him of the sledge.

‘The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst’:

• William Randolph Hearst was America’s greatest media proprietor. He invented ‘yellow journalism’.
  Yellow Journalism: (or yellow press) is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines and sensationalised stories to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal mongering, or sensationalism. By extension ‘Yellow Journalism’ is used today as a pejorative decry any journalism that treats news in an unprofessional or unethical fashion.
  Origins of ‘Yellow Journalism’: Pulitzer vs. Hearst
  the term originated during the American Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century with the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalising the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well.
  Pulitzer and Hearst are often blamed or credited for drawing the nation into the Spanish-American war with sensationalist stories or outright lying.
  However, the vast majority of Americans did not live in New York City, and the decision makers who did live there probably relied more on staid newspapers like the Times, The Sun or the Post.
• Hearst owned more than 10% of U.S daily newspaper circulation and more than 15% on Sundays, was one of the country’s leading magazine and radio-station owners and had great influence in Hollywood.
• Hearst rapidly built up the Examiner.
• He was known for hiring away the competitions biggest stars and for surrounding his opponents almost before they were aware of his presence.
• Hearst’s time as a great publisher and unsurpassable market leader ended shortly after WW1, when his publications began to be squeezed between better quality titles and racier tabloids.
• Therefore his strength rested on the accumulated mass of his circulation in many cities around the country, and on his films, newsreels, feature services, newswires, specialist magazines such as, Good House Keeping and Cosmopolitan and radio stations.

"Representing the People":

• "That he had proved to his journalistic colleagues that he was capable of writing good copy from the front was of no political consequence whatsoever."
• "While the news from the fronts had boosted circulation, the new revenue did not begin to cover the added costs of putting out special war editions, sending correspondents to Cuba and the Philippines, and cabling back to their dispatches to New York."
• "[Hearst] intended to end his political career in the White House."
• "During the Spanish-American War, Hearst and Pulitzer had raised the wholesale price of their papers from 50 to 60 cents a hundred."
• "As the evening Journals and Worlds disappeared from the streets and advertisers demanded rebates, Hearst’s and Pulitzer’s editors were left with two choices: to accede to the boys’ demands or use strong-arm tactics to get their papers back in circulation."

"Candidate of a class":

• "Still an outsider – no opposition or standing in the city, state, or national Democratic Party. Hearst had only one link to the electorate and the Democratic Officials who chose candidates: his newspapers."

"To establish himself as a force in the national party and potential running mate for Bryan in 1900, he needed to find a way to make his voice heard outside of New York and San Francisco. The most effective way to do this was by starting up a new newspaper in the nation’s second largest city, Chicago."