marktorch-84684

I just watched an episode of this series that seemed to claim that William Randolph Hurst was in some way responsible for the existence of investigative journalism. Never mind that earlier in the episode, it was pointed out that he only got into the newspaper business because his father won the San Francisco Examiner in a game of cards and kept it because he wanted to get elected. It also mentions, as if in passing, that W R Hurst's papers routinely invented sensational stories, faked interviews, staged pictures and generally engaged in rabble rousing in order to further his own interests. The evidence offered suggested that he has a claim to be the father of manipulative mass media rather than sharing the DNA of Bob Woodward. It was almost like the "Corporate America" on coke view of the history in it's ludicrous mix of jingoism and incoherence. Maybe the series itself is the spawn of just the kind of "yellow journalism" this episode explains and then glosses over. I hope no one thinks this review contains spoilers. That would credit this show with a level of cogency to which it doesn't even appear to aspire.