William Randolph Hearst: Why do we care that he existed?

I saw him mentioned in the movie we are watching and I thought that some background information might be helpful

This man is a fairly important one to remember for a lot of reasons

1. He was a newspaper/media tycoon! He owned numerous newspapers across the country and used them to clout political power.
2. He used his newspaper empire to create “Yellow Journalism” (aka, media sensationalism) which not only influenced policy at the time, but also greatly influenced the path of journalism (as sadly we experience today)
3. He used his sway in the media, almost whimsically, to feather his personal agenda. Often, his personal biases wormed their way into becoming long standing U.S. Policy.
   1. The most famous example of this is probably the criminalization of marijuana. Hearst owned more then one million acres of land, much of it with timber. At the time, the hemp industry and timber industry were competing. Hearst invented sensational stories about kids doing crazy things while doing marijuana to panic the public and thus crush his competition.
4. He became a democratic member of the house of representatives in New York City. He ran for mayor and for New York state senate and lost narrowly both times (most of this happened before the thirties, but he was a pretty big deal then too.)
5. He lead a very colorful life. Everything you hear rappers brag about in rap songs, Hearst did more prolifically. He had the single most expensive private estate ever on 24,000 acres and is worth 1.65 million dollars. It had three swimming pools and a full movie theater as well as many great works of art. He also had a mistress who publicly lived there. This was not his main house in NYC, but his vacation home.

So I guess the moral of the story is: Use the press to delude people into doing your bidding and you will make ridiculous amounts of money to spend on the arts and ladies.