User:Charles Foster Kane

I'm an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. My flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation's popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories. I entered the publishing business in 1887 with Mitchell Trubitt after being given control of The San Francisco Examiner by my wealthy father, Senator George Hearst.

After moving to New York City, I acquired the New York Journal and fought a bitter circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer's New York World. I sold papers by printing giant headlines over lurid stories featuring crime, corruption, sex, and innuendos. I acquired more newspapers and created a chain that numbered nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak. I later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine business in the world. I controlled the editorial positions and coverage of political news in all my papers and magazines, and thereby often published my personal views. I sensationalized Spanish atrocities in Cuba while calling for war in 1898 against Spain. Some historians reject my subsequent claims to have started the war with Spain as overly extravagant.

I was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives, and ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States in 1904, Mayor of New York City in 1905 and 1909, and for Governor of New York in 1906. During my political career, I espoused views generally associated with the left wing of the Progressive Movement, claiming to speak on behalf of the working class.