The entrepreneur who revolutionized car business decides to change how the world thinks now, so he buys a media property to use as a megaphone. Its boast confirms the worst impulses of many people and at the same time encourage enemies of democracy around the world.
It sounds like Elon Musk and its Social Media X in 2025, but it was also Henry Ford and his document, Dearborn Independent, in the 1920s. Ford, the inventor of the T model, bought a suburban week and remodeled it to push his anti -Semitic views. Dearborn Independent published a long -term series called “International Jew” that accused Jews for world illness, and promoted “protocols of older Zion”, a document with fraud. The Nazis gave Ford a medal.
Ford was perhaps the most amazing example in the long tradition of magnates who bought the media platforms, and then used them to promote disgusting opinions. These magnates often used the latest technology to address the widest audience, be it high -speed newspaper presses or in the case of Ford its network of car dealers.
Go to your new T -model and there would be Dearborn Independent on the seat. The newspapers were local businesses at that time. With business representations, Dearborn Independent became one of the highest circulated papers in the country and printed more than 750,000 copies of each issue at its peak.
After Henry Ford bought Dearborn Independent, he released a long -term series called “International Jew”, which repeated the anti -Semitic tropics and accused Jews of the disease in the world.Credit…Congress library
The biggest difference between Ford and other media titans as Rupert Murdoch was that the other generally promoted his views by hiring equally -minded editors and anchors. Dearborn Independent announced on its envelope that it is a “Ford International Weekly” and included the editorial office signed by Ford.
Mr. Musk’s action signals a return to Ford’s personal approach. Tesla and billionaire SpaceX have enthusiastically published, reposts and approved incorrect or inflammatory demands on X, that social security is fraudulent, that the Democrats import immigrants to win the elections and that the federal judges rule against Trump’s administration.
There are a lot of precedents for what Mr. Musk does with X., but this process has converted to an unimaginable level even a short time. The page says it has 220 million followers, which is impossible to verify. Although it is only a fraction of this number, X has been optimized to fire the contributions of its owner as wide as possible. People see and hear them about them.
The purchase of Mr. Musk of $ 44 billion, what was then Twitter in 2022, first seemed to be a mistake, even for him. Then it was perceived as a billionaire toy. She became a weapon in last year’s elections. He used his political views to create an alliance with Donald J. Trump, who then used himself to explicitly close as much as possible into the government.
The impacts are still developing. But it was a clear victory for Mr. Musk. In the name of the government’s effectiveness, regulatory bodies burned to his empire. Mr. Musk now has a much more free hand with his cars and missiles. (The spokesperson X did not provide a comment.)
“It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen,” said Rick Perlstein, author of the four -purpose chronicle of modern American conservatism. A historian who has noticed the frequent use of Mr. Musk’s memories and pictures: “It is a nervous system policy, not a higher brain function. There is no argument, just afraid of mongering.”
Magneli in the United States and Britain owned the media to have an influence from the creation of modern newspapers at the end of the 19th century. During the First World War Viscount Northcliffe in Britain dominated about 40 percent of the morning circulation and 45 percent of the evening circulation there. His qualities included Daily Mail, Working Class and The Times, reading the elite.
Viscount, named Alfred Harmsworth, played a key role in the composition of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith in December 1916. Winston Churchill wrote that the Baron “sought to apply the commanding influence on events”. The influence of Viscount Northcliffe on the war was so great that the Germans sent warships to murder him in 1917 and burn his direct home.
In the United States, the media control was often a local phenomenon. In the western Texas in the early 1960s, the Ultraconsentive Whittenburg The Amarillo Daily News, the NBC TV station and the dominant radio station owned the family. There were few competing voices.
“If you feed people with a far -right media diet, you will end up with the population almost exclusively on the right side,” said Jeff Roche, a historian who wrote a “conservative border”, the upcoming study of the region policy. “Amarillo became the most right -wing city in America.”
“The ownership of the media and political influence has left the first days of the newspaper industry,” said Simon Potter, a professor of modern history at the University of Bristol, who studies the mass media. “Have people worried about this intimate relationship between the media and politics for a long time – does it really have a public interest?”
Being this question is another: Does their megaphone give them too much, or are they screaming into emptiness? The answer is provided by the American predecessor Mr. Musk – William Randolph Hearst. Hearst, owner of UPSTART New York, sent correspondents to Cuba in 1897 to cover the war with Spain. His interests were less humanitarian than promotional. He was in the war in circulation.
New York Journal since March 25, 1898. William Randolph Hearst sent correspondents to Cuba during the war with Spain.Credit…Congress library
One version of how this story happened has shown Hearst as an omnipotent media tycoon:
The correspondents of the magazine found that there was no war. “Everything is quiet,” Frederic Remington, paper illustrator, Cabled Hearst. “There will be no war.” They wanted to leave.
Hearst replied, “Stay. Stay. You provide pictures and I will imagine a war.” He then upset the war in his newspaper that President William McKinley had begun in short ranking. He liberated Cuba and gained himself for the United States awarded part of the Spanish Empire.
The story was first published in a book by Hearst’s named James Creelman and later immortalized in Orson’s Welles “Citizen Kane”. Over the years it has been thoroughly revealed. There was no evidence that Hearst would ever say that he would supply war. The correspondents found a lot of illustration. But the anecdote persisted, because it showed that the tycoon so powerful that he could earn wars out of nowhere.
When Hearst tried to switch from his war efforts to develop his own political career, he encountered. In 1902 he secured a place in the House of Representatives, but he strives to become the mayor of New York twice. He also lost the 1906 campaign for Governor of New York.
David Nasaw, who wrote “Boss: William Randolph Hearst’s Life, thinks that the use of X Muska to gather supporters is as illusory as the estimated work of Hearst’s war.
“I didn’t see anywhere that Twitter would get Maga’s vote,” he said.
Hearst, according to Mr. Nawa’s view, reflected his readers’ sentiments rather than lead them. The historian, however, agreed that something new to Mr. Musk is happening. Hearst, Ford, even Viscount Northcliffe and other British printed gentlemen before World War II, all had something in common that eventually limited them.
“They were out of the room and screamed,” Mr. Nasaw said. “Twitter was important to Muska, but only to get it inside the room, to the government. It is unique in that it is inside and outside without limiting its behavior. There has never been anything like that.”
Tesla sells. Hearst and Ford could warn Mr. Musk: Courting controversy with hateful views is bad for your reputation and usually bad also for your business.
Ford was suggested for insulting on insult to Dearborn Independent and became the subject of boycott. In 1927 he closed the paper, although he did not do his views. The stain persisted.
Hearst came up against President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and laid his anti-roosvelt pleasure on the front of his novelties. When the editorial became more and more abusing, the readers had to choose: Who will we support, the President or the publisher?
“They chose Roosevelta,” Mr. Nasaw said. “Which meant that Hearst eventually destroyed himself and his newspaper.”
