Joseph Pulitzer’s Philosophies Shape Modern Media
No one has influenced the modern newspaper more than Joseph Pulitzer. For more than a decade, Pulitzer worked diligently to turn a small newspaper business into one of the most powerful papers of the late 1800’s. Pulitzer’s influences, accomplishments, philosophies, and downfall all helped shape modern newspapers, and the articles that they contain.
Joseph Pulitzer was born to a wealthy family in Hungary on April 10, 1847. As a teenager, Pulitzer tried to join the army. However, he was rejected on numerous occasions because of his poor eyesight. Eventually, Pulitzer was accepted into the American Union army and immigrated into the United States in 1864.
One of Pulitzer’s earliest influences was working at the Westliche Post in St. Louis. Carl Schurz hired Pulitzer as a reporter. While working for the paper, Pulitzer got his first taste for politics, which would influence almost every aspect of his papers in years to come.
Pulitzer, in search for a large circulation audience, moved to the Big Apple and purchased the New York World in 1883. Within five years, he increased the New York World’s circulation ten times in five years, from 15,000 to 150,000 readers. It was Pulitzer’s eye for style and content that helped revolutionize the modern newspaper industry.
Pulitzer realized that newspapers do not sale on reputation, nor content alone. In order for a paper to stand out among the rest, there has to be something unique to catch a readers’ attention. With this in mind, Pulitzer began to use illustrations on the front page of the New York World. Other innovations made by Pulitzer were the use of multiple typesets and multi-column headlines.
The New York World’s circulation was so large because Pulitzer tailored the paper for all people. He sought to make the paper enjoyable for immigrants and women, the two groups that had little education at the time. During the 1890’s the New York World developed pages consisting exclusively of sports and women’s news. Today’s newspapers still follow these principles.
In the early 1900’s just before his death, Pulitzer began work on an endowment that would become another of his great accomplishments. He began work on an outline for a school of journalism. The idea was original rejected by Columbia University because officials worried about how a school of journalism would affect the university’s reputation. However, in 1912, the Columbia School of Journalism opened. Also, the outline included a provision for annual prizes for excellence in journalism. These prizes would be known as Pulitzer Prizes, and the first was awarded in 1917.
Some of Pulitzer’s main philosophies are present in the articles in the New York World. He believed that everyone should have the same opportunities. With this idea, he made the paper enjoyable for all citizens. The articles were tailored with words that were simple enough for the common man to understand, yet would not offend the most educated of readers.
Pulitzer also had a soft spot in his heart for the less fortunate. He used the New York World to expose the corruption in the dairy industry in 1884. During this time, milk dealers blended water, soda, and borax into their products to satisfy the demand for cheap milk. Many underprivileged children grew sick or died from the milk contamination. The numerous articles written about the milk prices helped bring justice to those who were suffering from the contaminated milk.
A final philosophy of Joseph Pulitzer was the belief that money, not politics, threatened to doom the United States. During Pulitzer’s reign at the New York World, the Gilded Age was in full swing. This was a time after the Civil War when soldiers were working and raising families. The government backed off almost completely from regulating business. Men, such as Rockefeller and Carnegie made fortunes in oil, iron, and steel, which were all unregulated. At this time muckrakers – journalists, such as Pulitzer, who set out to expose capitalist corruption and restore society, rose to fame. The New York World was Pulitzer’s tool to expose the corruption of the upper class.
Despite all of Pulitzer’s philosophies and acts of goodwill, a circulation war between the New York World and New York Journal, would leave his reputation tarnished forever.
In 1895, William Randolph Hearst purchased the New York Journal and began one of the most dramatic periods of competition in journalism history. To compete in circulation with the New York World, Hearst lowered the Journal’s price to one cent, expanded the number of pages and articles, and imitated many of Pulitzer’s groundbreaking ideas.
Both men started to use their papers for sensationalism and scandals, with out any regards of consequence. This type of reporting is called “yellow journalism”. It is rumored that this name was derived from a cartoon called the Yellow Kid, which ran in the New York World. Both journals tried to outdo the other by printing the most extreme and mindless controversies of the time.
Some people view Joseph Pulitzer as a hypocrite because of his involvement in the circulation war against Hearst. How can a man who used his paper to fight corruption in society turn around and stoop to sensationalism just to win a circulation war? Joseph Pulitzer is the only one who could answer that question. It is not necessary to linger on one man’s downfall. Instead, Pulitzer should be remembered for his influence on the modern newspaper, the establishment of the Pulitzer Prize, and the Columbia University School of Journalism.
Credits
Author Unknown. Joseph Pulitzer. 09October99. Internet. http://www.onlineconcepts.com/pulitzer/pulppr.htm.
Author Unknown. Joseph Pulitzer. 09October99. Internet. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/pulitzer.htm. .
Knowlton, Steven & Parsons, Patrick. The Journalist’s Moral Compass. Praeger
Publishers, Westport, CT. Pgs. 179 – 183