New York World

The World was formed in 1860. From 1862 to 1876, it was edited by Manton Marble, who was also its proprietor. During the 1864 United States presidential election, the World was shut down for three days after it published forged documents purportedly from Abraham Lincoln.[2][3] Marble, disgusted by the defeat of Samuel Tilden in the 1876 presidential election, sold the paper after the election to a group headed by Thomas A. Scott, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who used the paper "as a propaganda vehicle for his stock enterprises."[4] But Scott was unable to meet the newspaper's growing losses, and in 1879 he sold it to financier Jay Gould as part of a deal that also included the Texas & Pacific Railroad.[4] Gould, like Scott, used the paper for his own purposes, employing it to help him take over Western Union. But Gould could not turn the financial state of the newspaper around, and by the 1880s, it was losing $40,000 a year.[4]

Joseph Pulitzer bought the World in 1883 and began an aggressive era of circulation building. Reporter Nellie Bly became one of America's first investigative journalists, often working undercover. As a publicity stunt for the paper, inspired by the Jules Verne novel Around the World in Eighty Days, she traveled around the planet in 72 days in 1889–1890. In 1890, Pulitzer built the New York World Building, the tallest office building in the world at the time.

In 1889, Julius Chambers was appointed by Pulitzer as managing editor of the New York World; he served until 1891.[5]

Advertising poster for the July 28, 1895, New York Sunday World

In 1896, the World began using a four-color printing press; it was the first newspaper to launch a color supplement, which featured The Yellow Kid cartoon Hogan's Alley. It joined a circulation battle with William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal-American. In 1899 Pulitzer along with Hearst were the cause of the newsboys' strike of 1899 which led to Pulitzer's circulation dropping by 70%.

The World was attacked for being "sensational", and its circulation battles with Hearst's Journal American gave rise to the term yellow journalism. The charges of sensationalism were most frequently leveled at the paper by more established publishers, who resented Pulitzer's courting of the immigrant classes. And while the World presented its fair share of crime stories, it also published damning exposés of tenement abuses. After a heat wave in 1883 killed a disproportionate number of poor children, the World published stories about it, featuring such headlines as "Lines of Little Hearses". Its coverage spurred action in the city for reform. Hearst reproduced Pulitzer's approach in the San Francisco Examiner and later in the Journal American.

Charles Chapin was hired in 1898 as City Editor of the Evening World. He was most known for embracing the sensational and showing little empathy in the face of tragedy, only taking a more solemn tone when reporting on the assassination of William McKinley in 1901. He controlled the newsroom with an iron fist, and was commonly despised by the journalists who worked for him. Chapin fired 108 newspaper men during his tenure.[6] However, Stanley Walker still referred to him as "the greatest city editor that ever lived."[7] His time at the World ended when, after falling into financial ruin, he murdered his wife in 1918. He was sentenced to Sing Sing Prison and died there in 1930.

Special Christmas 1899 section featuring a story by Mark Twain

1904 political cartoon of President Theodore Roosevelt

Frank Irving Cobb was employed on a trial basis as the editor of the World in 1904 by publisher Pulitzer. Cobb was a fiercely independent Kansan who resisted Pulitzer's attempts to "run the office" from his home. The elder man was so invested in the paper that he continually meddled with Cobb's work. The two found common ground in their support of Woodrow Wilson, but they had many other areas of disagreement.

When Pulitzer's son took over administrative responsibility of The World in 1907, his father wrote a precisely worded resignation. Cobb had it printed in every New York paper—except the World. Pulitzer raged at the insult, but slowly began to respect Cobb's editorials and independent spirit. Exchanges, commentaries, and messages between them increased. The good rapport between the two was based largely on Cobb's flexibility. In May 1908, Cobb and Pulitzer met to outline plans for a consistent editorial policy.

John McNaught went to New York to work under Joseph Pulitzer as his personal secretary from 1907 to 1912. When he left The Evening World, he became editor of the New York Morning World through 1915.[8]

Pulitzer's demands for editorials on contemporary news led to overwork by Cobb. The publisher sent his managing editor on a six-week tour of Europe to restore his spirit. Shortly after Cobb's return, Pulitzer died. Cobb then published Pulitzer's resignation. Cobb retained the editorial policies he had shared with Pulitzer until he died of cancer in 1923.[9]

When Pulitzer died in 1911, he passed control of the World to his sons Ralph, Joseph and Herbert. The World continued to grow under its executive editor Herbert Bayard Swope, who hired writers such as Frank Sullivan and Deems Taylor. Among the World's noted journalists were columnists Franklin Pierce Adams (F.P.A.), who wrote "The Conning Tower"; Heywood Broun, who penned "It Seems to Me" on the editorial page; and future hardboiled fiction writer James M. Cain. C. M. Payne created several comic strips for the newspaper.

The paper published the first crossword puzzle in December 1913. The annual reference book, called The World Almanac, was founded by the newspaper, and its name, World Almanac, is directly descended from the newspaper.

The paper ran a twenty-one article series that was an exposé on the inner workings of the Ku Klux Klan, starting September 6, 1921.[10][11]

In 1931, Pulitzer's heirs went to court to sell the World; a surrogate court judge decided in their favor; Scripps-Howard chain owner Roy W. Howard purchased the paper to eliminate its competition. He closed the World and laid off the staff of 3,000 after the final issue was printed on February 27, 1931, then merely replaced the word "Evening" on his afternoon paper, the Evening Telegram, renaming it the New York World-Telegram.