Conclusion

Even his most strenuous critics conceded that William Randolph Hearst for a time brought energy, vigor, and excitement to daily American journalism. H. L. Mencken was no admirer of Hearst but granted that Hearst’s activist journalism “shook up old bones and gave the blush of life to pale cheeks.” ¹ Those contributions were never more apparent than during the crowded year of 1897 when Hearst—and Ochs and Steffens—were developing rival models for the future of American journalism. Their clash of paradigms energized American journalism and gave definition to the wider ferment in the field at the end of the nineteenth century.