The original clickbait king
4/16/202648 min
When we call something "clickbait," we don't mean it as a compliment. But let's be real: we also click. It's hard to resist a spicy story, and 19th-century newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst knew it. At a time when most papers merely reported events, his papers created them, sending reporters out to perform daring rescues, solve sensational murders, and even meddle in geopolitics. Today on the show: the man who brought spectacle and scandal to the news — and changed journalism forever.
Guests:
Karen Roggenkamp, professor of English at East Texas A&M University and author of Narrating the News and Sympathy, Madness, and Crime
W. Joseph Campbell, emeritus professor of communication at American University and author of The Year That Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms and Lost in a Gallup: Polling Failure in U.S. Presidential Elections
To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
This message comes from Pod Save the World. If it's hard to make sense of modern global conflicts, Pod Save the World breaks down the week's most impactful foreign policy news with digestible expert analysis. Tune in wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
Evangelina Cisneros· Soundbite0:15
While all seemed so dark and helpless to me in my prison, events were shaping towards my delivery. [gentle somber music] For weeks, a brave, strong man had been watching the jail, seeking some weak spot, trying to find some way to rescue me.
Rund Abdelfatah· Host0:37
The year is eighteen ninety-seven, and Evangelina Cisneros, a teenage girl from a well-off family, has been in prison in Cuba for over a year. She doesn't know anything about the welfare of her family, and she's horrified by the conditions. Initially, she lives in what she calls a large cage with other women.
Evangelina Cisneros· Soundbite0:59
Hundreds of the most terrible women that could be dreamed of.
Rund Abdelfatah· Host1:02
Eventually, she's taken to a more private room, which she shares with other women accused of a similar crime to her, treason against Spanish colonial rule. Month after month, she sits and looks out the window, awaiting her fate.
Carl Decker· Soundbite1:21
[somber music] The only windows to be seen from the alley