Joseph Pulitzer

**Joseph Pulitzer** (April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911) was an American publisher of Jewish descent. He is best known for the Pulitzer Prizes, which were started by his will after his death .

He is also known, along with William Randolph Hearst, for starting yellow journalism as a way to sell more papers by having sensationalism in articles.

## Early days: _The Post-Dispatch_

Joseph Pulitzer was born in Makó, which is now in Hungary. Originally, he a military career, but was turned down by the Austrian army because it thought that his health was bad, and he did not see very well. He went to live in the United States in 1864 to serve the Union Army in the American Civil War. After the war, he settled in St. Louis, Missouri.

In 1868, he began working there for a German-language daily newspaper, the _Westliche Post_. He joined the Republican Party and was in 1869 elected to the Missouri General Assembly In 1872, Pulitzer bought the _Post_ for $3,000. Then, in 1878, he bought the _St. Louis Dispatch_ for $2,700 and merged the two papers, which became the _St. Louis Post-Dispatch_, which remains the citys daily newspaper. It was at the _Post-Dispatch_ that Pulitzer developed his role as a champion of the common man with exposés and a hard-hitting populist approach.

## _New York World_

By 1883, Pulitzer had made a lot of money. That year, he bought the _New York World_ for $346,000 from Jay Gould, its owner. The newspaper had been losing $40,000 a year. Pulitzer changed its focus to human-interest stories, scandal, and sensationalism.

In 1885, Pulitzer was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, but he resigned after a few months since he did not like politics. In 1887, he recruited a famous investigative journalist, Nellie Bly. In 1895, the _New York_ _World_ introduced the Yellow Kid, a comic by Richard F. Outcault. Ot was the first newspaper comic to be printed in color. Under Pulitzer's leadership, circulation grew from 15,000 to 600,000, which made _The New York World_ the largest newspaper in the nation.

## Health problems

The editor of the rival _New York Sun_ attacked Pulitzer in print by calling him "The Jew who gave up his religion." in 1890. That was intended to turn away Pulitzer's Jewish readership. Pulitzer's already-failing health deteriorated rapidly, and he left the newsroom. He continued actively managing the paper from his vacation retreat in Bar Harbor, Maine, and his New York City mansion.

In 1895, William Randolph Hearst purchased the rival _New York Journal_, which led to a circulation war. The competition with Hearst, particularly the coverage before and during the Spanish-American War, linked Pulitzer's name with yellow journalism.

After the New York _World_ exposed a fraudulent payment of $40 million by the United States to France's Panama Canal Company in 1909, Pulitzer was indicted for libeling President Theodore Roosevelt and J. P. Morgan. The courts dismissed the indictments in a victory for freedom of the press.

## Support for school of journalism

In 1892, Pulitzer offered Columbia University's president, Seth Low, money to set up the world's first school of journalism. The university initially turned down the money since it was unimpressed by Pulitzer's unscrupulous character. In 1902, Columbia's new president, Nicholas Murray Butler, was more interested in the plan for a school and prizes, but it was only after Pulitzer's death that his dream would be fulfilled.

Pulitzer left the university $2 million in his will, which led to the creation in 1912 of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, but the first school of journalism by then had been created at the University of Missouri. Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism remains one of the most prestigious in the world.

## Death and legacy

Pulitzer died aboard his yacht in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1911. He is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York. In 1917, the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded, in accordance with his wishes.

In 1989, Pulitzer was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

## References

- Brian, Denis. _Pulitzer: A Life_ (2001)

## Other websites

- A well-researched paper on Pulitzer's life and journalism
- A well-written detailed biography
- St. Louis Walk of Fame