Nellie Bly, 1864-1922: Newspaper Reporter Used Unusual Methods to Investigate and Write About Illegal Activities in New York City

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Source: pt.wikipedia.org

I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Ray Freeman with the Special English program,PEOPLE IN AMERICA. Every week we tell about a person important in the

history of the United States. Today, we tell about a reporter of more than one hundred years ago.

The year was eighteen eighty-seven. The place was New York City. A young woman, Elizabeth Cochrane, wanted a job at a large newspaper. The editor agreed, if she would investigate a hospital for people who were mentally sick and then write about it.

Elizabeth Cochrane decided to become a patient in the hospital herself. She used the name Nellie Brown so no one would discover her or her purpose. Newspaper officials said they would get her released after a while.

To prepare, Nellie put on old clothes and stopped washing. She went to a temporary home for women. She acted as if she had severe mental problems. She cried and screamed and stayed awake all night. The police were called. She was examined by doctors.  Most said she was insane.

Nellie Brown was taken to the mental hospital. It was dirty. Waste material was left outside the eating room. Bugs ran across the tables. The food was terrible: hard bread and gray-colored meat.

Nurses bathed the patients in cold water and gave them only a thin piece of cloth to wear to bed.

During the day, the patients did nothing but sit quietly. They had to talk in quiet voices. Yet, Nellie got to know some of them. Some were women whose families had put them in the hospital because they had been too sick to work. Some were women who had appeared insane because they were sick with fever. Now they were well, but they could not get out.

Nellie recognized that the doctors and nurses had no interest in the patients' mental health. They were paid to keep the patients in a kind of jail. Nellie stayed in the hospital for ten days. Then a lawyer from the newspaper got her released.

Five days later, the story of Elizabeth Cochrane's experience in the hospital appeared in the New York World newspaper. Readers were shocked. They wrote to officials of the city and the hospital protesting the conditions and patient treatment. An investigation led to changes at the hospital.

Elizabeth Cochrane had made a difference in the lives of the people there. She made a difference in her own life too. She got her job at the New York World. And she wrote a book about her experience at the hospital. She did not write it as Nellie Brown, however, or as Elizabeth Cochrane. She wrote it under the name that always appeared on her newspaper stories: Nellie Bly.

The child who would grow up to become Nellie Bly was born during the Civil War, in eighteen sixty-four, in western Pennsylvania.

Her family called her Pink. Her father was a judge. He died when she was six years old. Her mother married again. But her new husband drank too much alcohol and beat her. She got a divorce in eighteen seventy-nine, when Pink was fifteen years old. Pink decided to learn to support herself so she would never need a man.

Pink, her mother, brothers and sisters moved to a town near the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pink worked at different jobs but could not find a good one.

One day, she read something in the Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper. The editor of the paper, Erasmus Wilson, wrote that it was wrong for women to get jobs. He said men should have them. Pink wrote the newspaper to disagree. She said she had been looking for a good job for about four years, as she had no father or husband to support her. She signed it "Orphan Girl".

The editors of the dispatch liked her letter. They put a note in the paper asking "Orphan Girl" to visit. Pink did. Mr. Wilson offered her a job.

He said she could not sign her stories with her real name, because no woman writer did that. He asked news writers for suggestions.  One was Nellie Bly, the name of a girl in a popular song. So Pink became Nellie Bly.

For nine months, she wrote stories of interest to women. Then she left the newspaper because she was not permitted to write what she wanted. She went to Mexico to find excitement. She stayed there six months, sending stories to the Dispatch to be published.  Soon after she returned to the Pittsburgh Dispatch, she decided to look for another job. Nellie Bly left for New York City and began her job at the New York World.

As a reporter for the New York World, Nellie Bly investigated and wrote about illegal activities in the city. For one story, she acted as if she was a mother willing to sell her baby. For another, she pretended to be a woman who cleaned houses so she could report about illegal activities in employment agencies.

Today, a newspaper reporter usually does not pretend to be someone else to get information for a story. Most newspapers ban such acts. But in Nellie Bly's day, reporters used any method to get information, especially if they were trying to discover people guilty of doing something wrong.

Nellie Bly's success at this led newspapers to employ more women. But she was the most popular of the women writers. History experts say Nellie Bly was special because she included her own ideas and feelings in everything she wrote. They say her own voice seemed to speak on the page.

Nellie Bly's stories always provided detailed descriptions. And her stories always tried to improve society. Critics said Nellie Bly was an example of what a reporter can do, even today. She saw every situation as a chance to make a real difference in other people's lives as well as her own.

Nellie Bly may be best remembered in history for a trip she took.

In the eighteen seventies, French writer Jules Verne wrote the book "Around the World in Eighty Days." It told of a man's attempt to travel all around the world. He succeeded. In real life, no one had tried. By eighteen eighty-eight, a number of reporters wanted to do it. Nellie Bly told her editors she would go even if they did not help her. But they did.

Nellie Bly left New York for France on November fourteenth, eighteen eighty-nine. She met Jules Verne at his home in France. She told him about her plans to travel alone by train and ship around the world.

From France she went to Italy and Egypt, through South Asia to Singapore and Japan, then to San Francisco and back to New York.  Nellie Bly's trip created more interest in Jules Verne's book. Before the trip was over, "Around the World in Eighty Days" was published again. And a theater in Paris had plans to produce a stage play of the book.

Back home in New York, the World was publishing the stories Bly wrote while travelling. On days when the mail brought no story from her, the editors still found something to write about it. They published new songs written about Bly and new games based on her trip. The newspaper announced a competition to guess how long her trip would take. The prize was a free trip to Europe. By December second, about one hundred thousand readers had sent in their estimates.

Nellie Bly arrived back where she started on January twenty-fifth, eighteen ninety. It had taken her seventy-six days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds. She was twenty-five years old. And she was famous around the world.

Elizabeth Cochrane died in New York in nineteen twenty-two. She was fifty-eight years old. In the years since her famous trip, she had married, and headed a business. She also had helped poor and homeless children. And she had continued to write all her life for newspapers and magazines as Nellie Bly.

One newspaper official wrote this about her after her death:

"Nellie Bly was the best reporter in America. More important is the work of which the world knew nothing. She died leaving little money. What she had was promised to take care of children without homes, for whom she wished to provide. Her life was useful.  She takes with her from this Earth all that she cared about -- an honorable name, the respect and affection of her fellow workers, the memory of good fights well fought and many good deeds never to be forgotten. Happy the man or woman that can leave as good a record."

This VOA Special English program, PEOPLE IN AMERICA, was written by Nancy Steinbach. Your narrators were Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman.

William Randolph Hearst, 1863-1951: He Created What Was Once the Nation's Largest Newspaper Grou

William Randolph Hearst, 1863-1951: He Created What Was Once the Nation's Largest Newspaper Group

Source: www.voanews.com 

Voice of America Special Englishwww.manythings.org/voa/people 

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Welcome to the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA.  Today, Steve Ember and Rich Kleinfeldt tell about American publisher William Randolph Hearst. Mr. Hearst created what was once the nation's largest newspaper organization. He bought newspapers in many areas of the United States.  He spent millions of dollars to gain readers in sometimes shocking ways.  He forever changed the American newspaper business.

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William Randolph Hearst was born in San Francisco in eighteen sixty-three.  He was the only child of George Hearst and Phoebe Apperson Hearst.  His father became rich by developing mines.   His mother was a philanthropist who gave her time and money to help others.

William Randolph Hearst had everything he wanted as a child.  But, he was a rebel.  In eighteen eighty-five, he was expelled from Harvard, one of the best universities in America, for playing a joke on a professor.

George Hearst wanted his son to take control of developing the mines or the land he owned.  But William had other desires.  He became interested in newspapers while at Harvard.  He started working as a reporter for the New York World newspaper owned by Joseph Pulitzer.

George Hearst owned the San Francisco Examiner newspaper.  But he was more interested in politics than in newspaper publishing.  In eighteen eighty-seven, George Hearst became a United States senator.  He gave control of the newspaper to his son William who was twenty-three.

William Randolph Hearst wanted to create a newspaper that people would talk about.  He worked long hours and put high energy into his newspaper.  He employed some of the best reporters and writers he could find.  And, he paid them the highest wages.  Mr. Hearst improved the appearance of his newspaper and bought modern equipment.  He also improved relations with advertisers.  Advertisers pay to have their products shown in newspapers to increase sales.  Newspapers profit from the money paid by advertisers.

News stories in the San Francisco Examiner were written with force, energy and excitement.  Some stories were written to shock readers and affect them emotionally.  However, the stories were simple and easy to read.

Mr. Hearst believed in doing whatever it took to get readers.  His newspaper policy was:  make the news complete; print all the news; shorten it if necessary, but get it in.  That became the policy in newsrooms across America.

By eighteen ninety-one, the San Francisco Examiner had three times more readers and advertisers than when Mr. Hearst took control of the newspaper.  In less than five years, William Randolph Hearst made the new San Francisco Examiner a huge success.

Mr. Hearst repeated his success in New York City. He borrowed five million dollars from his mother to purchase a second newspaper, the New York Journal.  In his first two months, he increased the number of copies sold from thirty thousand to one hundred thousand.

Joseph Pulitzer was a very successful publisher in New York.  Mr. Hearst shared Mr. Pulitzer's excitement and energy about the newspaper business.

During the eighteen nineties, Mr. Hearst and Mr. Pulitzer began a fierce newspaper war.  Mr. Hearst hired many reporters from Mr. Pulitzer's New York World newspaper.  He paid them more than two times as much as they had been earning.  He also reduced the price of his newspaper below Mr. Pulitzer's.

Mr. Hearst won readers by making the news more exciting and entertaining.  He created a kind of newspaper reporting known today as "yellow journalism."  News events were made to seem greater than they really were.  His methods went beyond what would be accepted today in major newspapers.  Critics said his newspapers were only for entertainment.  Yet many other newspapers tried to copy his methods.

Mr. Hearst attacked big businesses and dishonest politicians in his newspapers.  There were also reports about sex, murder and other crimes.  His newspapers became a voice for working people and the poor.  His influence grew across the nation through his newspapers and the magazines he bought or began.

Many experts say Mr. Hearst's reporting methods and his battle with Mr. Pulitzer for readers led to the Spanish-American War.  In eighteen ninety-eight, the United States fought Spain to help the people of Cuba gain independence from Spain.

Mr. Hearst's newspapers had accused Spain of sinking the American battleship Maine and killing two hundred fifty sailors.  This increased public support for the war.  However, it still is not known how the ship sank.

The war greatly increased readers for the Hearst publications.  Mr. Hearst's battle with competitors widened after the war.  Some newspapers blamed him when President William McKinley was murdered in nineteen-oh-one.  The assassination happened after one of the Hearst newspapers seemed to suggest killing Mr. McKinley.

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 VOICE TWO:

In the early nineteen hundreds, William Randolph Hearst became deeply involved in politics.  He represented New York in the United States House of Representatives from nineteen-oh-three to nineteen-oh-seven.  In nineteen-oh-four, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president.  He also failed in his campaigns to become governor of New York or mayor of New York City.

Mr. Hearst had hoped to change the way things were being done in New York City.  He hoped to defeat dishonest New York City politicians who controlled the city at the time.

Mr. Hearst also campaigned against big business.  He supported labor unions and government ownership of public utilities, railroads, and other big companies.  And, he sought political reform and the return of economic competition in the country.

Mr. Hearst's opponents accused him of being disloyal to his country because of his support for Germany during the first years of World War One.  He was opposed to American involvement in the war.

Mr. Hearst was sharply criticized for his political ideas.  Many people refused to deal with him.  Some hated him.   His newspapers were banned in many communities.

Mr. Hearst strongly supported Democrat Franklin Roosevelt for president in nineteen thirty-two.  Then he became increasingly conservative and turned against President Roosevelt.  He opposed American involvement in World War Two.  He also led a fierce campaign against communism during the nineteen thirties.

Through the years, Mr. Hearst continued to buy newspapers and magazines across the country and around the world.  He also controlled a number of radio and television stations and a movie company.

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William Randolph Hearst and his wife Millicent were married in nineteen-oh-three.  They had five sons.  She remained married to him until her death.  However, Mr. Hearst spent almost thirty years of his life with Hollywood actress Marion Davies in San Simeon, California.  They met in nineteen seventeen and later lived together at San Simeon.  He started a movie company to produce movies for her.  Their relationship shocked the nation.

Mr. Hearst spent thirty years and thirty million dollars to build a huge home at San Simeon.  It has one hundred sixty-five rooms.  Mr. Hearst and Marion Davies entertained many famous people there.  He continually bought costly art objects to fill it.

By nineteen thirty-seven, Mr. Hearst's heavy spending threatened to ruin his publishing organization.  He was forced to sell much of his property and many art objects.  The economic recovery after World War Two saved what was left of his media organization.

When William Randolph Hearst died in nineteen fifty-one, he still owned what was then the largest newspaper company in America.  Today, the Hearst Corporation includes more than one hundred thirty separate businesses.  They include newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and business media companies.  The communications business William Randolph Hearst began continues to influence and inform people around the world.

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 ANNOUNCER:

This Special English program was written by Cynthia Kirk. It was produced by Paul Thompson.   Your narrators were Steve Ember and Rich Kleinfeldt.  I'm Faith Lapidus.  Listen again next week for anotherPEOPLE IN AMERICA program on the Voice of America.