Two of the most influential journalists in history include Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. Both men had their own beginnings, their own families, and their own ideals. Pulitzer and Hearst collided in New York in the mid-1900s. Both men ran their own newspapers (The New York World and the New York Morning Journal, respectively) and sank to levels of yellow journalism as they competed with each other. If I was going to work for one of the two men, I would prefer to work for Joseph Pulitzer. The main reasons are that Pulitzer has been described as a decent man with decent ideals; he developed tactics to sell papers while Hearst practically copied him, and he raised himself up from poverty to riches, working hard until his death. These traits in Pulitzer make me admire him, while Hearst has been labeled as a man with little or no ethics. Also, the lasting impression of Pulitzer shines more than the ideals that Hearst stood for.
Joseph Pulitzer was born in Austrio-Hungary in 1847. He immigrated to the United States in his teens, and befriended the publishers of a German newspaper titled the Westliche Post at the age of 21. Amazed by his intellect, the publishers offered him a position on the newspaper (Bates 60), and four year later, Pulitzer began to publish it himself. After buying the St. Louis Dispatch and merging it with the St. Louis Post, Pulitzer began to develop the tactics that would help make him a successful publisher: sensationalism and the newspaper crusade (Bates 63). J. Douglas Bates's book titled "The Pulitzer Prize,"" claims that Pulitzer "wasn't the first publisher to try [sensationalism], but he refined the controversial practice to an unprecedented level of success."" (63) He bought the New York World and used this sensationalism, or "yellow journalism- to increase its circulation, propelling he and his family to wealth and material riches. Pulitzer was involved with "circulation wars- against quite a few other publishers who attempted to knock him off of his journalistic pedestal.
