#135 Joseph Pulitzer (Politics & Media)

**David Senra** (0:00)
I want to tell you about a one-time only limited event that I don't think you're going to want to miss. I am doing a live show with Patrick O'Shaughnessy from the Invest Like the Best podcast in New York City on October 19th. Patrick has interviewed over 300 of the world's best investors and founders for his podcast. I've read over 300 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs for my podcast. We'll be talking about what we learned from seven years of podcasting, sharing our favorite ideas and stories and doing a live Q&A. There will also be special event-only swag. If you live in New York City, I think it's a no-brainer, but if not, I think it's a great excuse to fly in. I've already heard from a bunch of people that bought tickets, they're flying in from other cities. Some people are flying in from other countries. That's setting the bar really high, so I will have at least four shots of espresso or four energy drinks before or during the show so we can make it a night that you'll never forget. If you're interested in attending this unique live event, I will leave a link down below. I highly recommend you get your tickets today, and I hope I get to see you in New York on October 19th. Like Alfred Nobel, Joseph Pulitzer is better known today for the prize that bears his name than for his contributions to history. That is a shame. In the 19th century, when America became an industrial nation and Carnegie provided the steel, Rockefeller the oil, Morgan the money, and Vanderbilt the railroads, Joseph Pulitzer was the midwife to the birth of the modern mass media. What he accomplished was as significant in his time as the creation of television would be in the 20th century, and it remains deeply relevant in today's information age.
Pulitzer's lasting achievement was to transform American journalism into a medium of mass consumption and immense influence.
He accomplished this by being the first media lord to recognize the vast social changes that the Industrial Revolution triggered, and by harnessing all the converging elements of entertainment, technology, business, and demographics.
This accomplishment alone would make him worthy of a biography. His fascinating life, however, makes him an irresistible subject. Ted Turner-like in his innovative abilities, Teddy Roosevelt-like in his power to transform history, and Howard Hughes-like in the reclusive second half of his life as a blind man tormented by sound, Pulitzer's tale provides all the elements of a life story that is important, timely, and compelling.
All right, so that is it from the very beginning of the book called Pulitzer, A Life in Politics, Print, and Power, and it was written by James McGrath Morris. Pulitzer's life is almost unbelievable. I could not wait to sit down and talk to you about this. I mean, just look at the introduction there, who the author compares them to. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Turner, Roosevelt, Hughes. So I want to jump into his early life. Before I do that, there's two things I want to bring to your attention that I thought were unique, and I think knowing this at the very beginning will give you a good understanding of the life of Pulitzer. So this is taking place in Havana in 1909 I'm about to read to you. It's just a few years before Pulitzer dies, and it says, Since becoming blind at the apex of his rise to the top, the 61-year-old Pulitzer suffered from insomnia, as well as numerous other real and imagined ailments that's what they meant about Hughes like, and was tormented by even the smallest sound.
During his long exile, and what they mean there is later in his life, he would just roam the earth on a yacht and run his businesses through a series of telegraphs, and he would travel with just this large group of secretaries, it's very much like what Howard Hughes did, if you remember the podcast they did on him, and away from his family, which is very bizarre, but I'm gonna get into a lot of that. So it says, during his long exile, Pulitzer never relaxed his grip on the world, his influential New York newspaper. So he founded what became, and this is part of what makes his life story so amazing, is how he was able to transform, and really he's the pioneer of the modern media industry. He's gonna have this massive rivalry with somebody that used to idolize him, and that's William Randolph Hearst. But I think reading the biography of Pulitzer gives you an idea into the early days of what the media, like the birth of the media industry. So it says, he never relaxed his grip on the world, his influential New York newspaper, that had ushered in the modern era of mass communications. Okay, so I just ran over my own point there. An almost unbroken stream of telegrams, all written in code, flowed from ports and distant destination to New York, directing every part of the paper's operation. The messages even included such details as the typeface used in an advertisement and the vacation schedule of editors. So we see his maniacal desire for control.