• Remembering Joseph Pulitzer Remembering Joseph Pulitzer Joseph Pulitzer was a journalist and newspaper publisher, an immigrant who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. He was born in Hungry in 1847 and died in 1911. During his lifetime he
• Remembering Joseph Pulitzer
Remembering Joseph Pulitzer
Joseph Pulitzer was a journalist and newspaper publisher, an immigrant who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. He was born in Hungry in 1847 and died in 1911. During his lifetime he changed the face of journalism in the United States.
He immigrated to America in 1864 and served in the U.S. Calvary during the Civil War, and made his way to St. Louis to start a German language newspaper, the Westliche Post. Soon he was owner and publisher of the The Evening Dispatch in St. Louis, too. Pulitzer later combined the two into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the main newspaper today of the Pulitzer newspaper chain, the corporation who bought The Garden Island in the late 1990s.
Pulitzer bought the New York World in 1883 and was in fierce competition with William Randolph Hearst of New York’s Journal American. The competition forced the publishers to add new innovations to their booming newspapers to keep up with each other. New to the newspapers were items that we take for granted today, including comic strips, publicity stunts, muckraking and especially going all out to report news “scoops” on their front pages, which often went through several editions each day. Pulitzer dug deep to pay top dollar to attract the best journalists of his day. His philosophy of publishing included mocking the rich when needed, and bringing to the forefront the abject living conditions and other problems of the poor.
Pulitzer was in turn mocked on the pages of competing pages, in part for his Jewish faith.
His formula worked well, reflected in huge circulation gains, and in putting big city news into the mainstream of American life at a time when most Americans lived in rural areas.
After the turn of the century, Pulitzer focused on improving the quality of the journalism at the Post-Dispatch, and sold his New York holdings. He fled the sensationalism of what was then called “yellow journalism.”
He suffered from partial blindness in his later years, and desired to leave behind a heritage that would last through the ages. After his death his sons Ralph and Joseph sold the New York papers and focused on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which became well known for its outstanding journalism and public service. The editorial page still maintains the Pulitzer tradition of what’s known as independent liberalism. In other words, liberal leaning, but also critical of all political parties when needed.
Pulitzer’s heritage remains strong, with the annual Pulitzer Prize awards the hallmark of journalistic excellence in America, and through the steady stream of journalists who receive masters degrees from the journalism school at Columbia University in New York City.
Today it is likely that the sale of Pulitzer newspapers to Lee Enterprises of Iowa has gone through. We welcome this new ownership, which holds out bright hopes for the future of The Garden Island, while we will look back to the high standard of Joseph Pulitzer as a major inspiration.
