Patterson, Joseph Medill 1879-1946

NEWSPAPER PUBLISHER

Newspaper Family.

Joseph Patterson published the first and most successful tabloid newspaper in America. A man of eccentricities and contradictions who acted on impulse, he might have been classified as unbalanced—except that he was a journalist with a sure sense of what interested his readers. Patterson was born into a wealthy and powerful newspaper family. His maternal grandfather was Joseph Medill, publisher and editor of the Chicago Tribune, and his father became editor of that paper. Patterson's sister, Eleanor (Cissy), later became publisher of the Washington Times-Herald. Although he dressed carelessly and rejected the requirements of his social position, he was educated at the upper-class Groton School in Massachusetts and graduated from Yale in 1901. All of his life he felt comfortable with the proletariat, living with bums in Chicago's First Ward and New York's Bowery. Patterson...

[The entire page is 854 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass