Background
Charles Kenny McClatchy was born on November 1, 1858, in Sacramento, California. He was the son of James McClatchy, founder and owner of the Sacramento Bee, and Charlotte (McCormack) McClatchy.
500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053, United States
Charles Kenny McClatchy attended Santa Clara University, where he earned a Masters of Arts in 1901.
Charles Kenny McClatchy was born on November 1, 1858, in Sacramento, California. He was the son of James McClatchy, founder and owner of the Sacramento Bee, and Charlotte (McCormack) McClatchy.
Charles Kenny McClatchy attended Santa Clara University, where he earned a Masters of Arts in 1901.
After McClatchy left Santa Clara College, he began to work as a reporter for the Bee, then owned by James McClatchy and a partner. Over a number of years, McClatchy came to own the entire paper. On his twenty-first birthday, McClatchy became a full partner, and when his father died in 1883, he became an editor. McClatchy and his brother, Valentine, bought James McClatchy’s partner’s share of the company (making the Bee entirely family-owned), and in 1923 Valentine sold McClatchy his share as well. The Bee's editorial policy reflected James and McClatchy’s uncompromising integrity and fearlessness.
McClatchy expanded the Bee with a Northern California section, for which 125 special correspondents were hired. In 1922, he started the Fresno Bee, and in 1925 the newly purchased Sacramento Star merged with the Sacramento Bee. McClatchy added the Modesto News-Herald to the Bee chain, changing the name to the Modesto Bee. Starting in 1922, he began adding radio stations to his list of operations, becoming the first West Coast newspaper publisher to operate a radio station.
Though McClatchy’s business enterprises were successful, he did not let business take precedence over editorial integrity.
When McClatchy died in 1936, the Sacramento Bee had a circulation of fifty thousand, which was forty thousand more than its rival the Union. McClatchy left an estate valued at $1,500,000, mostly stock in his papers.
McClatchy believed that all the training journalists needed they could find in the Bible, and in Shakespeare and Dickens.
McClatchy defended the Bee's policy in endorsing political candidates based on their politics and their character, rather than on their likelihood to win, popularity, or their personal connections with the Bee’s staff.
McClatchy declined membership or association with all political parties and social organizations. He saw the pursuit of truth in journalism as a war. Sometimes he took a bold stand against financial monoliths such as John D. Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan, or the powerful railroad interests. He supported anti-trust legislation, fearing the dangerous effects of monopolies and rapid industrialization. At other times, McClatchy attacked radicalism. Though supportive of the rights of organized labor, he opposed militant approaches. He believed that strikes did too much damage to people, and preferred legal action over guerilla tactics. Overall, he considered the ideal paper to be “a tribunal that desires to do justice for all.”
Disillusioned after the first World War, McClatchy became an isolationist. He opposed the League of Nations, arguing that it would be ineffective and hypocritical. McClatchy also took issue with the involvement of the U.S. military in other nations in the defense of American businesses abroad. His isolationism carried into his ideas about immigrants. He supported the 1924 Exclusion Act, which barred Asians from emigrating to the United States. Though he based his arguments primarily on economic grounds, his comments revealed some racism as well.
Ever wary of extremes, however, McClatchy did also strike out against the Ku Klux Klan’s ideas and practices. When the Depression burdened the nation, McClatchy blamed Herbert Hoover. He endorsed Franklin D. Roosevelt and his job-creating projects, especially when they protected natural resources and public utilities. His support of the New Deal was based on pragmatism, because, Bray quoted, it “has dramatized and made more vivid some truths that thinkers have long realized: that underpaid workers do not provide an adequate market for American goods; that child labor is not only inhumane, but replaces adult labor; that slums are not only unsanitary and crime breeders but are costly to the community; that to prevent the growth of unrest we must see that all who are able and willing to work are given opportunities to do so, and that those who are helpless would be cared for humanely.”
He supported the New Deal Wagner Act as much for granting the right to organize as for its aversion to communist influences in organizations. McClatchy’s brand of progressivism was an alternative to socialism, and avoided “the pitfalls of bigoted opposition to any political or social change and also the menace of that spirit which rebels against all existing things and sees only in violent revolution any hope of betterment.”
As a young editor, McClatchy refused to kill a controversial article when objections were voiced. He stood by his story and defended the mission of his paper.
McClatchy made his strong convictions known both through his papers’ policies and through his own columns, “Notes” (1883-97) and “Private Thinks” (1897- 1936).
Quotations:
“Some queer notions obtain among the people as to the duty which a newspaper owes its readers, but the most prevalent one is that it should leave out important items of public interest at the request of those who may be injured by their publication. The object of this newspaper is to give the news. It is not the duty of a newspaper to wait until half its readers know a fact before it thinks of publishing it.”
“The editor occupies a position where it is his duty to battle for the right as God has given him to see the right. If he does not, he is false to every tradition of honest journalism; he is false to his profession; he is false to himself.”
McClatchy was principled, but he was also an ambitious businessman. In his will he admonished his daughter Eleanor, who succeeded him as publisher, and his other successors, to “ally themselves with no political party to be fair to all, to decide questions by the light of principle, never under the slavery of petty or partisan politics.” Other papers were forced to acknowledge McClatchy’s legacy and integrity. A New York Times writer called him “the crusading type of journalist. No matter what the battle, he fought for it with wholehearted determination.”
Quotes from others about the person
“C. K. McClatchy is probably the greatest journalist on the Pacific Coast. His newspaper is read and believed by more people than any other coast publication, although there are several newspapers with larger circulation.” - Carson City Daily-Appeal writer
McClatchy married Ella Kelly, a schoolteacher. The couple had three children.