A Hungarian who spoke little English came to the U. S. and became a successful newsman

Joseph Pulitzer [pronounced PULL-itzer], the man whose name is associated with excellence in writing, could speak or write very little English when he came to the United States in 1864 as a recruit for the Union army in the Civil War. 

Born in Hungary in 1847, Pulitzer had sought to join Austrian army and the French Foreign Legion but was turned down by both because of poor eyesight.

After the Civil War ended, Pulitzer drifted from New York to St. Louis where he worked odd jobs and later learned English and became an American citizen. His first newspaper job was with a German-language paper in St. Louis. He bought and sold stock in several small papers. He also became a lawyer, lived in New York and Washington, D. C., and was active in politics. 

Returning to St. Louis in 1878, he bought the struggling St. Louis Dispatch paper and soon merged it with another paper which was fighting for existence, the Post. He began publishing the combined St. Louis Post-Dispatch on this date, December 12, 1878. From the start, Pulitzer was committed to factual but hard-hitting reporting.  

Pulitzer later bought The New York World paper, turning it into a profitable business. Near the end of the 19th century, another publisher, William Randolph Hearst, bought The New York Journal and entered fierce competition with Pulitzer. In a circulation war, each paper passed the million mark---a first for any newspaper---with both men resorting to sensational reporting, often at the expense of truth or fairness. Critics coined the term yellow journalism to describe Hearst's and Pulitzer’s approach to newspaper work.

After a time, Pulitzer returned to responsible journalism. Before he died, he established endowments for the Pulitzer Prizes for excellence in journalism and other forms of writing. He also gave money to establish the graduate school of journalism at New York’s Columbia University.

Across the decades, Joseph Pulitzer’s family stayed in the mass media business, with as many as 16 daily papers, 30 non-daily papers, and more than a dozen television and radio stations as part of Pulitzer Inc.  In 2005, Pulitzer Inc. was purchased by Lee Enterprises for $1.46 billion.

Perhaps we can see a parable of life in Joseph Pulitzer: We work hard. We set goals. We live up to our own personal expectations for a time. We stray from our guiding principles. Then we are called back to our truer selves.

Advent provides opportunity for us to reflect on who we are, what our goals are, where we are going morally, socially, and spiritually, and changes we need to make in order to be true to God and to ourselves.

Verses for Today

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:13-15).

Each day through New Year’s Day, January 1, 2013, inspirational thoughts will appear, in keeping with Advent, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.  These are from my book, Reflections for the Festive Seasons.  © 2002.  All rights reserved.