Home > U.S. Immigration and Migration > Joseph Pulitzer Biography

Born April 10, 1847

Mako, Hungary

Died October 29, 1911

Charleston, South Carolina

Publisher who created mass-circulation newspapers that strongly affected government policy

"Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery."

Joseph Pulitzer is considered the inventor of the modern newspaper as a part of the mass media, which today refers to an entertainment or information source, including print and electronic sources, designed to appeal to a very large audience rather than to a narrower audience of people with special interests. He turned newspapers, which had been largely devoted to political parties and causes, into an entertainment medium. By...