#135 Joseph Pulitzer (Politics & Media)

What I learned from reading Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power by James McGrath Morris. ---- [0:20]  Joseph Pulitzer was the midwife to the birth of the modern mass media. Pulitzer’s lasting achievement was to transform American journalism into a medium of mass consumption and immense influence.  [3:04] He was the pioneer of the modern media industry.   [5:06] Teddy Roosevelt tried to have Joseph Pulitzer put in jail.   [7:11] How one of Pulitzer’s adult sons viewed him: One of the strange differences between us two is the fact that you have never come near learning how to enjoy life.  [9:42] Joseph favored reading works of history and biography.   [10:12] Joseph understood fully the extent of the calamity [his father’s death]. He had been 9 years old when his older brother died, 10 when his younger brother and sister died, 11 when his father died, and 13 at the death of his last sister.  [11:50] At 17 years old Joseph escapes to America. A group of wealthy Boston businessmen recruit thousands of young Europeans to fight for the Union in the American Civil War. This scheme became Pulitzer’s escape route.  [13:18] Describing how he came to the United States: He was friendless, homeless, tongueless, and guideless.   [14:05]  One of the places he slept when he was homeless was in the lobby of a hotel. They kept kicking him out. Later in life he buys the hotel.  [14:44] What he said about his job of tending mules: Never in my life did I have a more trying task. The man who has not cared for 16 mules does not know what work and trouble are.   [15:18] Pulitzer was a voracious reader. When he was not working he spent every free minute improving his mind.   [17:12]  Edwin Land said, "Anything worth doing is worth doing to excess". Joseph Pulitzer would have agreed with that.  [19:15]He was so industrious that he became a positive annoyance to others who felt less inclined to work. Pulitzer was unwilling to put forward anything but his best effort.  [25:10] In on