Joseph Pulitzer

A journalist, investigative reporter, publisher, and advocate for

freedom of the press, Joseph Pulitzer also started the first school of

Journalism - at Columbia University - and created the famous Pulitzer

Prizes for journalism and literature.

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If Joseph Pulitzer had been born with better eyesight, or hadn’t known how to play chess,
our newspapers would not be the same today. When he was a teenager in Hungary in the
1860s, Joseph decided to become a soldier, but his eyesight was so bad that no army
would take him. Finally, a recruiter from the United States signed him up to fight in the
American Civil War.
After a year as a soldier, and having managed to survive the Civil War, Pulitzer stayed in
America, working odd jobs and learning English. Then, a chance meeting changed his
life and changed the world of journalism forever.
As he was studying at the library in St. Louis, he saw two men playing chess. He
suggested a good move to one of them, and the three started up a conversation. The two
men were publishers of a newspaper, and they offered Pulitzer a job.
Joseph Pulitzer turned out to be a brilliant and hard-working reporter. After a few years,
he became publisher of the newspaper. Then, after making one smart deal after another,
he wound up owning the largest newspaper in the city - the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
That’s when Pulitzer’s real genius came out. He made his newspaper the voice of the
common people, investigating gambling rackets, political corruption, and rich tax