How Did Joseph Pulitzer Buy the New York World?

David Senra, reading James McGrath Morris, says Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World by going nearly $500,000 into debt for a paper that had never made a dime. He had no plan to stay in St. Louis. New York was the center of the world, and he was waiting until he could buy a paper there. Jay Gould, a railroad baron Senra says he has already done episodes on, had acquired the World by accident when he bought another company's assets and wanted the burden gone. Gould said he never cared about the paper. It had not made a dime in the four years he owned it. Circulation was an anemic 15,000, and it was losing money every week.

Signing the contract put Pulitzer nearly $500,000 in debt. Less than five years after he spent his last few thousand dollars to buy the bankrupt St. Louis Dispatch, he bet he could repeat that success on a much larger stage. He could leave because the Post-Dispatch practically ran itself. Each day he got a one-page report of circulation, advertising, expenses, and when the presses started and stopped. He told the men who ran the business side to be brief. He wanted the information in a nutshell.