Joseph Pulitzer
He became a leading national figure in the Democratic Party and was elected congressman from New York. He crusaded against big business and corruption and helped keep the Statue of Liberty in New York.
In the 1890s the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal caused both to develop the techniques of yellow journalism, which won over readers with sensationalism, sex, crime and graphic horrors. The wide appeal reached a million copies a day and opened the way to mass-circulation newspapers that depended on advertising revenue (rather than cover price or political party subsidies) and appealed to readers with multiple forms of news, gossip, entertainment and advertising.
William Randolph Hearst
His flamboyant methods of yellow journalism influenced the nation’s popular media by emphasizing sensationalism and human interest stories.