Five of the best books on newspaper owners

Amanda Smith is the author of Newspaper Titan: The Infamous Life and Monumental Times of Cissy Patterson.

At the Wall Street Journal, she named a five best list of books about newspaper owners.

One title on the list:

The Chief
by David Nasaw (2000)

When David Nasaw published his fittingly monumental biography of William Randolph Hearst in 2000, no major study of the newspaper magnate had appeared for four decades. With the unprecedented cooperation of both the Hearst Corp. and the Hearst family, Nasaw gained access to the Chief's previously unavailable business and personal correspondence. The result is a splendid, subtle portrait of the media mogul that allows the reader to see far beyond the "Citizen Kane" caricature. Hearst emerges not simply as a trustbusting, anticommunist, isolationist, king-making yellow journalist; or as a stupendous hoarder of paintings, mansions, newspapers and magazines; or even as a devoted husband to his wife, father to his children and long-term companion to his mistress. David Nasaw's William Randolph Hearst is all of those things but also plainly human—and more likable than expected. "The Chief" is an engrossing read that will likely stand as the definitive Hearst biography for years to come.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue