Joseph Pulitzer and Yellow Journalism

I am the son of a grain dealer who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1847 and who immigrated to St. Louis in the United States in 1864.

I wonder if the Mercantile Library is a good place to begin learning about the English language.

I hear a man named Carl Schurz is looking for me, to recruit me for his newspaper, the Westliche Post.

I see that the Republican Party shares my beliefs, and so therefore I will join them on the Missouri State Assembly.

I want Horace Greeley to become the president, instead of Ulysses S. Grant but I know that my efforts shall not be enough to stop Grant from winning.

I am going to purchase the St. Louis Post for $3000 and soon after that the St. Louis Dispatch for a similar price, in order to speak out against government corruption.

I pretend that I do not have so much money, and that I can not afford to buy the New York World (which I will) for about $346,000.

I feel that I can use the New York World to advocate a ten-point program of reform that focuses on tax reforms and corrupt employers.

I touch the shoulder of Richard F. Outcault and ask him to become an artist for my paper. I can see that his drawings and cartoons shall make my paper the largest in the country!

I worry that my journalist, Nellie Bly, will not have a proper story about the horrible conditions of the asylums in New York and reform will not come.

I cry of happiness because Ms. Nellie Bly has broken Jules Verne’s record of traveling around the world, in less than 80 days!

I am almost blind now at 43 years of age, and I understand that this means that I have to withdraw from the works of the New York World.

I understand that Mr. Outcault is now employed to the New York Journal. I have hired Mr. George Luks to replace Mr. Outcault.

I say that a war shall come out between my newspaper and the New York Journal.

I dream that I shall expose the fraudulent $40 million dollar payment of the United States to the Panama Canal Company.

I try to win the court case against me and in this way win a victory for the freedom of the press. The federal government charges me with criminally abusing President Theodore Roosevelt.

I hope that the Pulitzer Prize fund will live on, and many Pulitzer prizes will be awarded to deserving cartoonists and people of literature .

I am Joseph Pulitzer.

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