Hearst was enrolled in St. Paul’s Preparatory School in Concord, New Hampshire at the age of 16. He matriculated at Harvard, where he worked as the business editor of the Harvard Lampoon, but was eventually expelled for skipping classes and other misadventures.
In 1887 he took control of the struggling San Francisco Examiner, which his father had bought in 1880 for political reasons. Hearst remade the paper into a blend of reformist investigative reporting and lurid sensationalism, and it began turning a profit within three years after Heart took over, with circulation jumping from 5,000 to over 55,000.
Hearst used his media power to get himself twice elected to Congress as a member of House of Representatives (1903-1905; and 1905-1907) as a progressive, if not radical Democrat.
In addition to his successful business endeavors, Hearst amassed a vast and impressive art collection that included classical paintings, tapestries, religious textiles, oriental rugs, antiquities, sculptures, silver, furniture and antique ceilings.
Hearst added Chicago to his domain, acquiring the "Chicago American" in 1900 and the "Chicago Examiner" in 1902. The "Boston American" and the "Los Angeles Examiner" were acquired in 1904.
In the 1920s he started one of the first print-media companies to enter radio broadcasting. Mr. Hearst was a major producer of movie newsreels with his company Hearst Metrotone News, and is widely credited with creating the comic strip syndication business.
By the 1930s, he had built the nation’s largest media empire, including more than two dozen newspapers in major cities nationwide, magazines, wire and photo services, newsreels, radio stations and film production.
He died in Beverly Hills, California on August 14, 1951 at the age of 88.
William Randolph Hearst – American businessman and politician
