Joseph Pulitzer: The Birth of Yellow Journalism

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as the greatest journalist on earth or the most interesting man on the planet his life was said to resemble a story out of the books of giants goblins and fairies for many contemporaries joseph pulitzer was the perfect example of the american dream he was an immigrant who came to america all alone with no money and without even speaking the language but he worked hard all day every day and he made something of himself becoming one of the most influential voices in the country his story was a refreshing change of pace from most other businessmen of his era who inherited fortunes and enlarged them through dishonest underhanded even fraudulent means but pulitzer himself was hardly innocent in their pursuit of success his newspapers chased sensationalism sex scandal murder and fear-mongering while qualities such as fairness accuracy and accountability were often left by the wayside this approach which became known as yellow journalism has infected almost every facet of the fourth estate and is still of course prevalent today [Music] joseph pulitzer was born on april 10 1847 in the town of maiko in southeastern hungary the second of four children to philip pulitzer a successful magyar jewish grain dealer and louise berger a catholic austro-german by 1853 philip pulitzer had made enough money from the grain business to retire and move his family to budapest he later died of heart disease when joseph was 11 years old a few years later joseph's mother got remarried to a businessman named max blau who developed a hostile relationship with his step-children we don't know specifics about what happened we just know that pulitzer hated blau and couldn't wait to leave home when joseph reached that dreaded stage of puberty he shot up like a bean pole as a teenager he was about 1.9 meters tall at 6 foot 3 in freedom units but he was very skinny to the point where he always looked ill and emaciated this proved to be a problem when the 17 year old pulitzer tried to enlist in the austrian army hoping to follow in the footsteps of two uncles who were both officers unfortunately joseph was told that he was too gaunt too young and his eyesight was too bad so he was rejected undeterred bullets had traveled to paris looking to join the french foreign legion but they too gave him the same answer he then went to london hoping that he might get sent to india but was rejected again after that came hamburg where pulitzer tried his luck as a sailor but still no go for a while it looked like no one was desperate enough to accept this near-sighted skinny hungarian kid but fortunately for joseph while in hamburg he run into recruiting agents for the american union army these agents received bounties for every soldier they signed so they were ready to take anyone willing to put their mark on the dotted line and there was in 1864 that joseph pulitzer packed up his things and went aboard a rickety ship that crossed the atlantic crammed with a throng of immigrants looking to make it big in america while docking into boston harbor pulitzer jumped overboard into the cold water swammed ashore and traveled to new york alone by train he did all of this so that he could collect the 300 enlisting bounty himself on november 12 1864 pulitzer made it to remount camp in maryland where he joined the l company of the first new york lincoln cavalry although he only ever took part in a few minor skirmishes he was quickly disabused of whatever glamorous notions of the military life he might have gained from his uncles his captain took an instant dislike to him due to his weak scarecrow-like constitution and heavily accented broken english the other soldiers followed their captain's queue and mocked the new recruit instead of calling him pulitzer they called him pulitzer and considered it an invitation to grab joseph's prodigious nose so once the war was over what was next for young joseph definitely not a military career that much was clear he was broke sleeping on the streets of new york the city saw a large influx of veterans so finding any kind of job was difficult pulitzer spoke almost no english but was fluent in french and german so he thought he would move to a place with a large german population he sold his last worldly possession a white silk handkerchief and used the money to buy food and a ticket to st louis in october 1865 pulitzer arrived at his new home at first he was desperate for any kind of work that he could get he served as a coal shoveler than a mule caretaker a stevedore a laborer a deckhand and a waiter all of them were dead-end jobs that paid chicken feed so pulitz had to work two jobs at a time 16 hours a day just to barely make ends meet plus another four hours spent at the library learning english the librarian there udo bach vogel became his first friend in america and helped pulitzer learn the language by carrying out conversations in english one day pulitzer and 40 other people got scammed by a con artist who promised them great jobs on our plantation in louisiana the marks paid him five dollars and then they boarded a steamboat that simply dumped them in a remote area about 40 miles from louis apparently it took them three days without food or water to make it back to the city it was an awful ordeal but for joseph pulitzer it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him a local reporter heard the story track down pulitzer and convinced him to write an account of the experience for the german language newspaper wesley post he did well enough that the editor asked him to keep writing immediately pulitzer discovered that he had a knack for journalism but the sparse assignments weren't enough to pay rent fortunately for him at the newspaper building he made the acquaintance of two lawyers who got him a record-keeping job with the atlanta and pacific railroad as it turned out pulitzer had a knack for that as well the attorneys encouraged him to enter law school and even gave him free access to the library so that he could study at his leisure now a few noteworthy things happened in the years that followed josephus became an american citizen his younger brother albert joined him in saint louis and became a german teacher and pulitzer always admitted to the bar and he became a notary public his new career however wasn't a hit joseph still struggled with english he didn't have money to spend on smart looking clothes his odd scruffy appearance didn't attract many customers and he gave up the exhilarating life of a notary public but the timing worked out great because the west lick post was looking for a new full-time reporter and he got the job pulitzer was a complete workaholic he routinely worked 16 hours a day chasing down every lead and questioning every person with unbridled enthusiasm his editors loved him but his fellow journalists resented him for making them look bad on more than one occasion pulitzer was sent out on a wild goose chase but this never dampened his spirit his entry into the world of politics was just as serendipitous pulitzer joined the republican party like many of his newspaper colleagues on december 14 1869 he attended a republican meeting as a reporter they needed to put forward a candidate for the missouri state legislature because everyone thought that the democrats had the election in the bag someone nominated pulitzer as a joke the rest of the crowd laughed and unanimously selected pulitzer as their candidates guess what he won pulitzer put the same amount of effort into his election race as he did into his reporting he campaigned in the streets he visited people at home and displayed a genuine enthusiasm that struck a chord with the voters technically the moment pulitzer took his seat he was breaking the law because he was three years too young to serve in the legislature if anyone realized this they kept it quiet and pulitzer served out his term illegally his most notable contribution was voting to support the 15th amendment which gave black men the right to vote pulitzers are the highlight from his time as state legislature generated a lot more headlines though it was a rivalry between him and a democratic opponent named captain edward augustine which culminated in a fight inside the lobby of schmidt's hotel in jefferson city where pulitzer pulled a gun and shot augustine twice what exactly happened has never been made clear since newspapers told different versions based on whom they supported they all agreed that augustine taunted and insulted pulitzer several times but the pro pulitzer papers said that augustine was armed and charging at his enemy when pulitzer shot him in self-defense while the pro-augustine camp claimed that pulitzer shot an unarmed man ultimately pulitzer was charged with assault with intent to kill he was even found guilty but he was let go with only a 405 fine [Music] after his term was done pulitzer remained involved in politics but grew increasingly disillusioned with the republican party pulitzer was the kind of man who would never put party over principles so when he perceived that the republicans were showing signs of corruption or incompetence he distanced himself from them for a while pulitzer joined the short-lived liberal republican party which opposed ulysses s grant's presidential nomination and instead campaigned for new york tribune founder horace greeley for bullet sir the last draw came when the republican party backed rutherford b hayes president during the 1876 election he switched to the democrats and began campaigning for new york governor samuel jones tilden pulitzer was so firing and passion whenever he spoke in public that during one speech at the cooper union in new york he burst a blood vessel and started coughing up blood halfway through but he still finished his talk in front of a standing room only audience pulitzer had another close call on his 30th birthday when the hotel he was staying in court fire the alarm wasn't working so many of the residents were only made aware of the fire by the frantic screaming and chaos that was happening outside seventeen people perished in the blaze and pulitzer himself was almost among them before being rescued but let's take the bad with the good soon after the fire pulitzer moved to washington dc where he fell in love with 23 year old kate davis the two got married on june 19 1878 and went on to have seven children together all the while he was involved in politics pulitzer never abandoned journalism his dream was to have his own newspaper but he wasn't exactly rolling in dough yet in late 1878 he learned that the st louis dispatch was up for sale after going bankrupt pulitzer only had around five thousand dollars to spend so to prevent any outside interest he sent a covert emissary to bid on his behalf and managed to buy it for half of his budget more good news followed because the publisher of one of the newspaper's main rivals the st louis post called up to offer a merger because he didn't want to compete and thus at 31 years old joseph pulitzer owned his first newspaper the saint louis post-dispatch the paper circulation steadily rose under pulitzer's leadership and became one of saint louis's main political voices usually staying true to pulitzer's pledge that the post in dispatch will serve no party but the people immediately he started a fight with the bigger more established missouri republican which despite its misleading name was published by democrat william hyde and we guess it was opposite day and sunday lewis when they named their newspapers because another one of pulitzer's competitors was the globe democrat which you guessed it was actually a republican newspaper pulitzer's aggressive tactics of picking fights with virtually every other print publication in the city brought new readers to the post dispatch besides politicians pulitzer also crusaded against a lottery rack at a horse car monopoly and the gas company and this was just in the first few months in a short time pulitzer had made quite a few enemies so he got into the habit of walking around with a pistol so did his editor john cockerell and he actually had a chance to use it in 1882 there was an election to fill the seat of deceased congressman thomas allen the democrats backed a lawyer named james broadhead but pulitzer strongly opposed him consequently broadhead became the post-dispatcher's new prime target broadhead himself didn't respond to the attacks but his friend and law partner alonso slayback did on october 13th slayback charged into the offices of the post-dispatched and launched a virulent and threatening terrain cockerel in return the editor opened his desk drawer pulled out his gun and fired killing slayback almost instantly the story became a big sensation newspaper employees testified that slayback had a gun in his hand and was aiming it when cockerell opened fire other papers however were giddy with the excitement and the opportunity of taking down the post dispatch and many of them portrayed slayback as an innocent unarmed man who was murdered in cold blood at one point the missouri republican whipped up its readers into such a frenzy that a mob formed outside the officers of the post dispatch looking to burn the whole place down ultimately cockerell was exonerated during his trial but the court's public opinion wasn't as merciful the circulation of the post dispatch plummeted advertisers left in droves pulitzer's personal reputation took a big hit and his family became socially ostracized he felt like maybe it was time for a change the aftermath following slayback's death took its toll not only on pulitzer's business but also on his health in the spring of 1883 joseph and his wife traveled to new york intent on going on a long european vacation to rest up however while in new york pulitzer heard that infamous robber baron jay gould was looking to sell his newspaper the new york world for years pulitzer dreamt of running a publication in the big apple so he entered negotiations with gould and on may 10 1883 joseph pulitzer bought the new york world for 346 000 just like the post dispatch pulitzer announced in the first issue under his ownership that from then on the new york world would be dedicated to the cause of the people rather than the purse of the potentates will expose all fraud and sham fight all public evils and abusers and serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity basically pulitzer wanted his newspaper to be aimed at immigrants and the working class he knew this was the strategy that brought them to the dance and he had no reason to switch it up now most of new york's politicians and businessmen became equal opportunity targets including the world's former owner jay gould there was a rumor going around that gould remained a secret partner in the newspaper pulitzer feared this would ruin his champion of the underdog credential so he made sure that gould bore the brunt of his literary attacks just to show that the two were not on the same side not that cool didn't deserve it though in fact we've made a video about him a while back you can check that out if you want to know more about all the shenanigans that he got up to there were many as a consequence of focusing on the common man the newspaper began covering a lot more human interest stories at first these were only present in the sunday edition which pulitzer used as a sort of testing ground for his new ideas it featured stories about cannibalism at sea crazy religious sects human sacrifice in the united states and of course murder after gruesome murder one particularly infamous headline even read french socialist and explorer discovers a race of savages with well-developed tales it didn't take pulitzer long to realize that the more lurid scandalous or violent the story was the more copies it sold soon enough such accounts made their way from the sunday edition into the weekday papers the new york world became the progenitor of the tabloids of today where sensationalism scandal and fear-mongering triumphed over fairness accuracy and integrity but it wasn't all bad to be fair the world had its moments it exposed many tales of fraud and corruption both in the public and private sectors it recruited intrepid journalists who conducted genuine investigations the most famous of all being nellie bly it organized stunts and promotions that ultimately benefited society even though their main goal was to sell newspaper subscriptions the most memorable one involved raising funds to build a gigantic pedestal in new york harbor for the statue of liberty neither congress nor new york governor grover cleveland wanted to pony up the doe so it's entirely possible that without pulitzer's help the statue of liberty might have been shipped back to france [Music] pulitzer's hard work aggression and sensationalism turns the new york world into the best-selling newspaper in america and him into a rich man but the effort took its toll on his body remember that he was never really the picture of health plus he worked himself ragged 12 to 16 hour days for most of his adult life add to that the stress of his job and joseph pulitzer had become a frail and sickly man even though he was only in his early 40s his asthma was getting worse his eyesight was almost gone his nerves were shattered and he developed an extreme sensitivity to noise so much so that he had to soundproof the rooms where he spent most of his time pulitzer spent several years traveling abroad meeting with numerous medical experts but he ended up ignoring their advice since they all told him the same thing he needed to retire all the experts thought that the job was killing pulitzer however that was the one thing he'd never give up since he thought that his work was keeping him alive pulitzer did admit that he could no longer function as before so begrudgingly in 1890 he retired from the editorship of the world although he still managed it in absentia from the comfort of his own home even though pulitzer was supposed to take it easy his biggest challenge was yet to come it arrived in the form of a publisher william randolph hearst who purchased the new york journal in 1895 a newspaper originally founded by pulitzer's younger brother albert hearst went after the same audience as the world using the same approach to journalism his strategy seemed to be do what pulitzer does but do it bigger and he had the funds to back it up hurst poached pulitzer's people with better salaries and he initially sold his paper at a loss just to make it cheaper than the world there was also personal animosity there pulitzer respected hard-working self-made men while he had contempt for people like hearst who were playing the game with daddy's money the rivalry soon evolved into a journalistic war that went on for years and constituted the most shameful period of pulitzer's life the reality of the battle was that when his back was against the wall pulitzer discarded whatever principles he claimed to have and descended fully into irresponsible sensational and sometimes purely fabricated journalism just to sell more copies than his rival for his part hearst had no qualms about matching pulitzer mover move this explicit and unrestrained style which is still pervasive today became known as yellow journalism and in case you're wondering the name was derived from the fact that both publishers fought over the services of cartoonist richard outcalls who had a popular comic strip titled the yellow kid the rivalry reached an unprecedented height when cuba revolted against spain and there was serious concern in america that the u.s might go to war with spain both publishers realized that a war would sell a butt load of copies so they basically turned their newspapers into fear-mongering propaganda in order to make the public favor going to war it was similar to the plot of tomorrow never dies which would make both pulitzer and hearst real-life bond villains to be fair pulitzer did feel a modest pang of guilt and started adopting a more restrained approach to journalism following the spanish-american war in 1904 he hired frank cobb as the new editor of the world and he resisted pulitzer's attempts to continue running the newspaper from home pulitzer didn't like it but he respected cobb so eventually he relented and handed over the editor reigns in 1907 he turned the administrative side of the business over to his sons and retired altogether joseph pulitzer died aboard his yacht a few years later on october 29 1911 age 64. meanwhile hearst continued on his path unimpeded and eventually amassed the largest media empire in america although he did have the benefit about living pulitzer by 40 years but he is remembered today as a ruthless markeraker who made his fortune off of other people's misery and disgrace whereas pulitzer mostly rehabilitated his image thanks to a generous will he used his money to found columbia university graduate school of journalism one of the first and finest in the world and of course the pulitzer prizes for journalism which remain to this day his most enduring legacy [Music] you