CHAPTERS
- 0:00 – 1:57
Pulitzer Among the Robber Barons: Inspiring Rise, Cautionary Fall
David Senra introduces James McGrath Morris's biography and frames Pulitzer alongside Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan and Vanderbilt as the midwife of modern mass media. He previews a life that is both inspiring and a cautionary tale, ending in blindness and near madness.
- •Pulitzer transformed journalism into a medium of mass consumption and influence
- •The book compares him to Ted Turner, Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Hughes
- •He went completely blind in his early 40s at the apex of his power
- •His life is presented as both inspiring and a cautionary tale
- 1:57 – 3:49
Hungarian Childhood: Death, Poverty and a Volcanic Temper
Senra covers Pulitzer's birth in Hungary, his father's death from tuberculosis, and the loss of most of his siblings. His love of reading and his furious temper both show up early, and the family falls into poverty.
- •His father, a successful merchant, hired tutors for the children
- •Pulitzer chased a tutor out of a window over mathematics
- •He lost his brother, sisters and father by age 13, fueling lifelong health obsession
- •The family's property was seized for unpaid taxes
- 3:49 – 6:42
Escaping to America and Surviving St. Louis
At 17 Pulitzer joins the Union army through a Boston recruitment scheme to escape Europe. After the war he is released with little money, moves to St. Louis, and takes any job he can find, including caring for mules and working as a waiter.
- •The recruiters paid passage to America in exchange for fighting
- •He was paid $135.35 at the end of the war
- •He chose St. Louis because of its large German population
- •His waiter career ended with a beefsteak dropped on a guest's head
- 6:42 – 13:35
Library Obsession and Landing a Reporter Job
Pulitzer spends all his free time in a subscription library, and Senra connects this to Munger's idea of focusing on the task at hand. His diligence earns him a reporting job at the Westliche Post, where his work ethic stands out.
- •He brought apples to the library so he wouldn't waste time leaving for meals
- •Senra links his focus to Munger's "Carlyle's prescription"
- •The German Immigration Aid Society president noticed his diligence and got him the newspaper job
- •Colleagues found his effort exasperating, and visitors were impressed by his conversation
- 13:35 – 18:37
Politics, Journalism and the Shooting of Augustine
Journalism and politics were intertwined, and Pulitzer was elected to the legislature while still reporting. His attacks on a lobbyist led to a confrontation in a bar where he fired a pistol, and Senra draws out his understanding of media attention and his hypocrisy.
- •Politics and newspapers were two sides of the same coin; no paper was objective
- •At around 25 he went from bounty-hunting teenager to lawmaker in five years
- •He shot at and grazed a large lobbyist named Augustine, and got off with a small fine
- •He ran as many as 112 straight stories to keep an issue alive, and stayed silent when he wanted attention to fade
- •He took a lucrative police commission job despite attacking corruption, and later opposed unionization
- 18:37 – 21:46
Buying Into the Paper and Flipping an AP Membership
At 25 Pulitzer buys into the Westliche Post, then is bought out at six times his investment after a falling out. He then buys a failing German paper at auction purely for its Associated Press membership and sells it for a quick profit.
- •He borrowed about $5,000 to buy in, and walked away with about $30,000
- •The $30,000 equaled roughly half a century of a skilled worker's wages
- •The small German paper was bought for its AP membership
- •The St. Louis Globe owners bought the corporation within 48 hours, netting him about $20,000
- 21:46 – 25:55
Studying the New York Sun and the Insider's Edge
With savings but no purpose, Pulitzer drifts for several years while studying newspapers, especially the New York Sun. Senra compares his edge as someone who could do every job in a newspaper to James J. Hill's operator's edge in railroads.
- •He dreamed of buying a New York paper but first had to settle for St. Louis
- •The Sun was a cheap, readable penny paper focused on city news
- •Pulitzer said owners scarcely ever make newspapers
- •James J. Hill came from freight and logistics rather than finance
- •He called himself aimless, homeless and loveless, and warned his wife-to-be of his devotion to work
- 25:55 – 31:36
Buying the Dispatch and Building the Post-Dispatch
Pulitzer uses a straw bidder to buy the bankrupt Dispatch cheaply, then merges with The Post to buy time. His daily demand for detailed figures and his belief in evening papers set up the business.
- •He hired a "Trojan horse" bidder to avoid driving up the price
- •He calculated he had 17 weeks of cash before the paper failed
- •He asked daily precise questions about circulation, advertising and costs
- •Partner Dillon's breakup showed that one did not work with Pulitzer
- 31:36 – 36:32
Evening Papers, Self-Promotion and Dominating St. Louis
Pulitzer bets that evening papers will beat morning ones thanks to the telegraph, faster presses and electric light. He promotes his paper within its own pages, treats ads like stories, and buys out the competing Star through another straw bidder.
- •Technology made afternoon news fresher than morning papers
- •He aimed for one article daily provocative enough for dinner-table talk
- •He wanted advertising columns as interesting as news columns
- •He won the evening field and earned $88,000 a year
- •He fired unionizing printers, a despot in the office
- 36:32 – 41:30
Buying The World from Jay Gould and Raiding His Brother
Pulitzer goes nearly half a million dollars into debt to buy the New York World from Jay Gould, running the Post-Dispatch remotely through daily reports. He ruthlessly raids his brother Albert's staff after Albert refuses a merger.
- •Gould's World had a circulation of 15,000 and had never made money
- •Pre-printed one-page reports let him manage St. Louis from afar
- •Albert declined the merger offer, and Joseph's rival paper took his three most valuable men
- •He dropped "New York" from the paper's name
- 41:30 – 44:59
The Pulitzer Formula: Simplicity, Illustrations and the Statue of Liberty
Pulitzer gives The World a distinct style: simple, colorful, specific writing, plus illustrations to stand out from gray competitors. He raised funds for the Statue of Liberty pedestal through a penny-donation campaign that boosted circulation.
- •Headline was the lure and the copy was the hook; vagueness was a sin
- •He paid his cartoonist more than twice a reporter's salary
- •He believed a paper should make enemies
- •Over 120,000 donors funded the pedestal in under five months, and circulation soared
- 44:59 – 46:31
Hearst, Imitators and Pulitzer's Hypocrisy About Wealth
Pulitzer's success breeds imitators, most notably William Randolph Hearst, who studied The World and copied it. Senra returns to Pulitzer attacking the wealthy while coveting wealth and partnering with them.
- •Hearst, 24, set out to make the San Francisco Examiner a West Coast World
- •A decade-long circulation war with Hearst lay ahead in New York
- •Pulitzer thought inherited fortunes were evil but earned wealth was not
- •He became the financial partner of those he attacked
- 46:31 – 51:03
Going Blind and Ruling from the Dark
Overwork and poor health culminate in Pulitzer going blind in his early 40s. For the next two decades he runs The World through telegrams while wandering the globe, tormented by noise and pain.
- •He suffered insomnia, anxiety, depression and likely hypochondria
- •A detached retina led to total blindness, which he called the beginning of the end
- •He managed staff through piles of telegrams read aloud to him
- •He later owned the hotel that once kicked him out of its lobby
- •He said losing reading caused far more suffering than the rest of his life
- 51:03 – 52:23
A Cautionary Ending: Wealth Without Enjoyment
Senra closes with Pulitzer's strained family life and isolation. His son says he never learned to enjoy life, and Kate's anniversary letter reflects on how fleeting life is.
- •His marriage lasted about 30 years but with little time together
- •His companions were paid to be with him
- •He was estranged from his last living sibling and disappointed in his children
- •His son wrote that he never learned to enjoy life
- •Kate called life a puff of smoke that disappears into nothingness
