Pulitzer, The Man Who Changed The Way We Get Our News

As I was doing some more research for my essay on immigration in St. Louis at the beginning of the 20^th Century I found some information about an immigrant who changed the way that newspapers were written and published forever. His name was Joseph Pulitzer. He was born in Hungary to Jewish parents and immigrated to the US in 1864. When he arrived he did not speak English and he didn’t have any money. When he was 18 he joined the Union Army and became a part of Sheridan’s Troopers and fought in the Civil War. He spoke three languages; German, Hungarian and French. After the war he was once again penniless and decided to travel by train to St. Louis. When Pulitzer arrived in St. Louis he said "The lights of St. Louis looked like a promise land to me." He also liked being in St. Louis because at the time St. Louis was a German speaking city.

In 1879 he bought two newspapers; the St. Louis Dispatch and the St. Louis Post and merged them into one newspaper, the St. Louis Post Dispatch. I heard an author, James McGrath Morris, on KMOX yesterday talking about his book: “Pulitzer, A Life In Politics, Print and Power.” Mr. Morris said that Pulitzer changed the way that news was reported forever. Before Mr. Pulitzer, newspapers were written for upper class readers. He decided to have his paper written for everyday working people. He told his reports to give him stories that everyone would be talking about at night around the dinner table. Early on he exposed corruption in St. Louis County government. Newspapers had never carried those kinds of stories before. They had been controlled by politicians. Pulitzer was also behind the creation of the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri.