THE MAN WHO MADE NEWS
By
Biography of James Gordon Bennett the elder, who, with his Herald, is a landmark in journalistic history. A fully detailed thorough portrait of the Scot who came from Aberdeen at 24, tried publishing in Boston, reporting in Charleston, and thereby started the many ""firsts"" of his life -- first Washington correspondent, first to use interviews, first to print Wall Street prices, casualty lists, to publicize a murder trial, to perfect news gathering sources and so on. After years as a reporter and three abortive attempts to run a newspaper of his own, he succeeded with a fourth, the Herald, whose fresh, lively style, and sensationalism, won the reading public, although it made violent enemies. Bennett and the Herald forged newspaper tradition and were a cause celebre of their day. The emphasis is on journalistic history and the man as journalists, but there is enough of his happy marriage, his growing wealth and influence, his position during the Civil War, his importance as an editor, his retirement and lonely death, to make it a rounded picture of the man and his times.