ABSTRACT

Kenneth Hough’s “Home Invasions” examines the duality of William Randolph Hearst’s editorial policy in his newspapers, magazines, and newsreel series Hearst Metrotone News and News of the Day during the rise of fascism and militarism in Europe and Asia. As Hough notes, Hearst’s interwar newsreels both cast suspicion on foreign powers and celebrated Americanism, but Hearst’s messaging, particularly concerning Europe, cannot easily be reduced to xenophobia. Hearst’s flirtation with Italian and German fascism has often been exaggerated, but his toleration of these extremist movements in his media in the early thirties, including Mussolini’s ubiquitous and mostly positive presence, is well documented in his newsreel coverage. Hitler’s rise to power in the Hearst newsreels was more critically treated, but was still cautious and calculated to stoke an isolationist sentiment in American viewers. Simultaneously, Hearst included complementing coverage of the political and military battlefronts in Asia, which corroborated Hearst’s “America First” geopolitical views as well as his anti-Japanese prejudices. Indeed, the more disturbing the newsreel footage became—including graphic footage of Japanese attacks on Shanghai and the USS Panay in 1937—the more Hearst argued for policies of isolationism and military preparedness to focus on defense of the American homeland. As Hough demonstrates, the Hearst Metrotone News and News of the Day reporting on European and Asian political developments both showed a fascination with the wider world while also representing a failure by American newsreel producers to critically address the existential and global threats that arose in the 1930s.