William Randolph Hearst, one of the most powerful media figures in American history, left his mark in Milwaukee.
By 1918, William Randolph Hearst had become one of the nation’s most powerful and controversial citizens. He was being accused of favoring the German in the ongoing European war. He was being investigated by the federal government for sedition. He was burned in effigy on street corners. He was also perhaps the single biggest driver of public opinion in the US, presiding over a newspaper chain that would grow to control between 14 and 24 percent of the daily newspaper circulation in the country. And by 1918, Hearst wanted into Milwaukee.
The three major newspapers in Milwaukee in 1918 were the Evening Wisconsin, run by Harriet Cramer, widow of the sheet’s founder, the Milwaukee Journal, owned by the strong-willed and independent Lucius Nieman, and the Milwaukee Sentinel, controlled by leather tanning tycoon Charles Pfister. The Wisconsin was the weakest of the three, having lost ground to the Journal in the evening news game for decades. Hearst wanted the sheet, but as was his usual style, did not go after it directly. Instead, he dispatched Arthur Brisbane to acquire the paper as his proxy. Brisbane made a big show of announcing his “permanent” relocation to Milwaukee to bring the Wisconsin back to life. Brisbane was one of the best known editors in the country, but the coup for the city’s media was short-lived as, soon after reorganizing the paper, he flipped it to Hearst – who had been directing Brisbane’s every move in secret.
The legendary Arthur Brisbane, Hearst’s Milwaukee front man.
The transaction came under scrutiny when it was revealed that Brisbane had received interest-free loans from several local brewers. This help in securing the Wisconsin was suspected to be in exchange for a pro-German attitude in regards to the war. An investigation revealed that the brewers had indeed been trying to buy the opinion of the paper, but in regards to the troublesome US temperance movement, not to any international matters.
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Engulfed in scandal before his ownership of the paper was even finalized, Hearst proceeded to transform the paper from a dreary edition favored by the city’s upstanding German families, into, in the words of Milwaukee Sentinel scribe Crocker Stephenson, “a blood-curdling, crack-of-doom, run-for-your-life scandal sheet.” The very same evening that the new Hearst brand of journalism took precedence at the Wisconsin, the nearby Sentinel building caught on fire. Stephenson, reflecting on the Hearst term in the final issue of the Sentinel in 1994, found the coincidence to be a very apt harbinger of things to come.
Almost overnight, the Wisconsin became the city’s prime resource for Hollywood gossip and towering, alarm-sounding headlines. Crime stories were gladly played up, scandal and corruption were given front-page treatment. Hearst expanded the comics section and stuffed the back pages of the paper with serialized novels – as many as four at a time. More often than not, one of these novels was the source material for the latest starring comedic actress – and Hearst’s mistress – Marian Davies. By 1919, Hearst had acquired two more minor Milwaukee papers and merged them with the Wisconsin, rebranding it as “Wisconsin News.”
The new sheet quickly became a surprise competitor for the Journal, now established as the city’s most popular paper. The battle for supremacy in Milwaukee was literally fought in the streets as Hearst newsboys and distribution agents attempted to strong-arm into Journal territory. Circulation departments along “newspaper row” on Mason Street would empty at the cry of “fight!” and rush to the corner where their comrades were rumbling.
But if Hearst expected his employees to be ready to defend their sheet with fists, he also expected them to work on his terms, and his only. When his News staff struck for better pay in 1920, he rushed a crew of reporters and editors from nearby cities to take over for them. The strike was broken without the News missing a single edition and when his workers came slinking back, Hearst only rehired those he was sure had learned their lesson.
Although he could not overtake the Journal in terms of circulation, Hearst and the News certainly changed the newspaper business in Milwaukee. News, Hearst insisted, should not be the primary commodity of a paper. “The public is more fond of entertainment than it is of information,” he said. “People do not read to be bored.”
An example of the new emphasis on personalizing stories of murder and crime brought about by Hearst’s presence in Milwaukee.
The Journal took this concept – and the huge sales Hearst was making with it – to heart. During their war with News, the Journal expanded its sports section, added more comics, and developed its “women’s section.” The paper also greatly expanded its photography department, as the News was first city sheet to truly embrace the use of pictures. To counteract the News’ sensationalist headlines, the Journal introduced the Green Sheet – its own scandal rag section. Originally, the Green Sheet was only inserted into papers sold on newsstands or by newsies. Its contents, the Journal reasoned, made good reading for a man riding the trolley home after work, but had no business being delivered to the house where mother and the kids might see it.
Not content with anything less than dominance, Hearst bought the Sentinel from Pfister in 1924. The old tannery man had been losing money on the paper for years, and was happy to let it go for just $800,000. If the News was Hearst’s upstart in Milwaukee, the Sentinel soon became his immovable object. Never adapting the full-on blood and horror tactics of the News, the Sentinel became Hearst’s local conservative mouthpiece. He boasted of a Sunday circulation of over 200,000 – tops in the city – but everyone in the business knew the figure was hollow, inflated by copies sold to employees in bulk and later dumped into swamps or burned.
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For years, Hearst papers carried a daily quote from the boss on the editorial page.
Hearst continued his aggressive street tactics with the Sentinel, but also tried to undercut the Journal out-of-town. He issued an ultimatum to state-wide news distributors that they either drop the Journal or lose access to all Hearst-published newspapers and magazines. With such a huge portion of their product at stake, dealers had no choice but to refuse to carry the Journal. Hearst’s move backfired when it forced the Journal to develop their state-wide distribution system. The investment in the system was substantial, but it allowed the Journal to sell their own brand outside of Milwaukee, rather than relying on a string of middle men. Without such a system in place, the Sentinel could only watch as the Journal truly became a state paper for the first time, and lined streets from Kenosha to Superior with their trademark green delivery boxes.
In the years after the Great Depression, the Hearst empire began to falter. His newspapers had always been money-losers, subsidized by his income from mines, ranches, and lumber mills. When hard times rolled back these profits, he began to trim the fat in his publishing holdings. By 1930, he claimed to be $126 million in debt.
In 1938, after years in decline, Hearst offered to simply give the News to the Journal, asking only to be paid a portion of the paper’s profits should any be made. After they turned him down, he offered to sell the Sentinel for $1m – far less than its value – if the Journal agreed to take on the News as well. After considering the desperate situation their long-time rival was in, the Journal’s lords refused the offer – adding insult by telling Hearst they wouldn’t take his papers if he offered them as a gift.
The Milwaukee Sentinel’s non-ad for the opening of the classic film Citizen Kane at the Riverside.
The News folded in 1939. In 1941, trying to destroy Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, which was partially based on Hearst’s life, the old man famously ordered his media empire to completely ignore the film and refuse all of its advertising. Thus, Milwaukee moviegoers were treated to a somewhat cryptic listing for the Riverside Theatre in May 1941 – advertising the orchestra of Will Bradley “Plus a Giant Screen Attraction!” Hearst hung on to the Sentinel, losing money every year, until his death in 1951. Hearst Publishing continued ownership until a strike in 1962 shut the paper down for six weeks. With Hearst Publishing prepared to fold the paper altogether, the Journal Company stepped in at the last moment and – feeling that Milwaukee needed more than one voice in its daily news – offered $3 million for the sheet. They continued to publish the Sentinel until 1994, when the papers merged to form the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
