About Hearst Corporation

On March 4, 1887, a young man named William Randolph Hearst placed his name on the masthead of the San Francisco Examiner as "Proprietor" for the first time. It was, though no one realized it then, a historic event.

Over the decades, Hearst experimented with every aspect of newspapering, from page layouts to editorial crusades. By the 1930s, he had built the largest newspaper chain in the nation. At the same time the Hearst organization became deeply involved in magazine publishing.

The interest Hearst and his managers had in communications extended beyond the printed word as well. Their involvement with the new technology of broadcasting led to the acquisition of radio stations in the 1920s and the ownership of one of the first commercial television stations in the nation—WBAL-TV, Baltimore, Maryland—in 1948.

William Randolph Hearst died in 1951, but his legacy, Hearst Corporation, has continued to grow and prosper. Today, it is one of the nation's largest diversified media companies and the San Francisco Chronicle is one of its premier media.