Blog 7; EOTO 2 Presentation Reflection

EOTO 2 Presentation Reflection

    For our second EOTO presentation, we focused on journalism heroes throughout history and the legacies they left behind. There were many different figures that left behind great legacies, but two that stood out to me, in particular, were William Randolph Hearst and Fredrick Douglass. Both of these individuals did their own part to shape journalism as we know it today.

    

William Randolph Hearst was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company. He originally began his career by taking over his father's struggling newspaper, the San Francisco Examiner, in 1887. He then entered the New York City newspaper market by purchasing the New York Journal. The paper soon attained an unprecedented amount of circulation as a result of its use of many different illustrations, colored magazine sections, and bold headlines; its sensational articles on crime, and its reduced price of one cent. 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 even film production. As America’s first-ever media tycoon, Hearst invented the attention-grabbing methods that would change journalism forever. Hearst’s Journal and Pulitzer’s World began competing in a series of fierce circulation wars, and these newspapers’ use of sensationalistic reporting and frenzied promotional schemes brought New York City journalism to a boil. Competition between the two papers soon gave rise to the term yellow journalism.

    Fredrick Douglass was a famous abolitionist, journalist, and author. Douglass was an escaped slave who learned to read and write independently and through the help of others after he escaped. 

    Later on in his life, Douglass relocated to New York where he began his paper, The North Star. The paper's name was a reference to slavery, as slaves who had made an attempt to escape would follow the North Star to get to safety. Its first issue was published on December 3, 1847, and was a great success. The North Star continued to be a successful paper up until the 1860s when the Civil War was emerging. Even with this challenge, Douglass was still a respected writer. Douglass has even been famed for many of his speeches that cast great influence on the public. Along with promoting anti-slavery, he also fought for women’s rights and was a known feminist. A fun fact about Douglass is that he was one of the few men, and the only African American man, to attend the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Due to Douglass’ leadership and efforts to end slavery, be a voice for the voiceless, and feminist movements, he is a very influential and important figure in the history of journalism.