Joseph Pulitzer went down in history for his "demonic" spirit and his insatiable appetite for work that helped him succeed early as a worker, journalist and later publisher, but also to be considered the founder of "yellow journalism".
He made St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World two famous and profitable newspapers. He is known for establishing the Pulitzer Prize.
His life
T. Pulitzer was born on April 10, 1847 in Hungary. He was part of a large family, yet only he and his brother survived to adulthood.
When his father retired from the grain trading business in 1853, the family moved to Budapest. The children were educated in private schools while learning to speak French and German. His father died when Joseph was eleven and his mother remarried a businessman. At the age of seventeen, he decided to live alone.
He attempted from the age of 17 to join the Austrian army, the French Foreign Legion and the British army in India successively but was rejected due to his frail physical condition and his young age. He finally managed to be accepted into the Lincoln Cavalry, in the USA, at the age of 18. His brief military career ended on June 5, 1865, with an honorable discharge.
In 1867 he became an American citizen and in 1868 the German-language newspaper Westliche Post offered him a job as a journalist. He dedicated himself passionately to his new job, it is even reported that he worked 16 hours a day.
He joined the Republican Party and was nominated as a candidate, for want of another, for the Missouri State Legislature in 1869.
His victory was impressive, but both he and the other members of the party had overlooked that the young Pulitzer was only 22 years old and therefore younger than the law required for candidates. Very soon Pulitzer left the Republicans and sided with the Democrats.
Pulitzer and Journalism
Pulitzer loved politics but his true passion was Journalism. When he was offered the post of editor-in-chief of the Westliche Post in 1872, he accepted without a second thought.
In 1878 he bought St. Louis Dispatch at auction for $2,500. He then agreed with his Post co-owner to merge the two papers into one.
St. Louis Post Dispatch was born on December 12, 1878.
The passionate journalist worked tirelessly and did not hesitate to attack whatever evil St. Louis had to display. He dealt with tax evaders, gamblers, exposed insurance scams, wrote about monopolies, bankers and corruption.
He made many enemies through his truth.
In the early 1880s he bought the New York World newspaper and in 1980 built a sixteen-story building to house it.
World was known for investigative journalism and investigative reporting and was extremely popular with readers.
"Accuracy! Concision! Accuracy!"
Pulitzer was true to his motto "Accuracy! Conciseness! Accuracy!", as he believed in simply stating the facts as the correct way to present a story. However, when William Hirst bought a rival newspaper, the New York Journal, in 1895, Pulitzer forgot his standards.
So in order to sell as many papers as possible, both Pulitzer and Hirst began writing unrealistic stories, printing bloody and inappropriate headlines, and using lots of photos to attract readers.
In other words, they resorted to the style of journalism we now call "yellow".
After years of trying to outdo Hirst, Pulitzer finally realized the futility of this kind of journalism and tried again to just report the facts.
He died of heart failure on the deck of his yacht on October 29, 1911, aged 64. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Pulitzer Prizes
The Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in 1917, as he had stipulated in his will. Today they are considered the highest distinction for print journalism, while the literary prize of the same name is also considered important.
According to the endowment, eight prizes are provided in categories related to journalism (best report, article, cartoon, etc.) as well as four for arts and letters.