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Hearst Communications

American multinational mass media conglomerate group

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ1065024
Source-derived summary

Hearst Communications Inc. is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate owned by the Hearst family and based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan in New York City.

Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, television channels, and television stations, including the Albany Times-Union, Houston Chronicle, Austin American-Statesman, San Francisco Chronicle, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. It owns 50 percent of the A+E Global Media cable network group and 18 percent of the sports television company ESPN Inc. The conglomerate also owns Fitch Group and First Databank.

The company was founded by William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper owner who was most well known for his use of yellow journalism. The Hearst family remains involved in its ownership and management.

History

Formative years

In 1880, George Hearst, mining entrepreneur and U.S. senator, bought the San Francisco Daily Examiner. In 1887, he turned the Examiner over to his son, William Randolph Hearst, who that year founded the Hearst Corporation.

Peak era

In the 1920s and 1930s, Hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world, which included a number of magazines and newspapers in major cities.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Hearst Communications” as american multinational mass media conglomerate group. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Hearst, Communications and American.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1880, 1887—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1887-03-04, 1920-07-13—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Hearst, Communications and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Hearst Communications”, the useful work is to connect “american multinational mass media conglomerate group” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1065024. VIAF identifies the subject as 125502374. The Library of Congress control number is n80097919. 4 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1880 and 1887.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hearst Communications”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hearst Communications primary sources, Hearst Communications archive and Hearst research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hearst Communications”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Hearst Communications” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.