Pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer is better remembered for the prize named after him than for his part in history, and James McGrath Morris tells his story in a biography of the Jewish Hungarian immigrant. Morris follows Pulitzer's rise through American politics into journalism, where he gained great wealth and power, and his later years as a blind recluse. He shows how Pulitzer turned the newspaper into a mass medium and a fixture of city life, used it to push a progressive political agenda, and fought legal battles over press freedom, including one against Theodore Roosevelt, who as President tried to send him to prison. Years of research and documents that had only recently come to light underpin the account.

David Senra included it in the reading for episode #422 of his Founders Podcast, on Joseph Pulitzer.