When William Randalf Hearst was 24 he became editor of the San Fransisco Examiner (that rivaled with the Chronicle) and turned it into a success. He made the paper more interesting because ‘he began to run crime stories on his front pages’ (Nasaw 2002, p. 77) which meant that instead of ten percent of crime stories there were twenty four percent.
It was hard work running the paper, in a letter to his mother the young Hearst wrote “I don’t go to bed until two o’clock and I wake up at about seven in the morning and cant get to sleep again, for I must see the paper and compare it with the chronicle. If we are the best I can turn over and go to sleep with quiet satisfaction but if the chronicle happens to scoop us, that lets me out of all sleep for the day. The newspaper business is no fun and I had no idea quite how hard a job I was undertaking” (Nawsaw 2002, p. 72).
Hearst understood that reducing the number of stories and shortening them as well as adding more images would
‘materially aid the comprehension of an unaccustomed reader’ (Nasaw 2002, p. 75), he also 'reduced the number of columns and the number of stories, doubled the size of the headlines’ (Nasaw, p. 74).
Although 'Hearst though one of the youngest and most inexperienced in the office, was the boss and beloved’ (Nasaw, p.68), he brought in new people and paid his staff well ‘ a full 50 percent more than most of them had been making elsewhere’ (Nasaw, p. 69)
Bibliography
Nawsaw, D (2002). Hearst. The Chief: The Life of William Randolph. Gibson Square Books Ltd: London
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