James Gordon Bennett

James Gordon Bennett, “The Napoleon of the Newspaper Press,” was born in 1975 in Scotland where he resided until 1819 when he relocated to America. Bennett broke into the newspaper business that year when met the publisher of the Charleston Courier, Aaron S. Willington, who hired him as his editorial assistant. 

In 1823, however, Bennett moved back to New York City where he began work at the Democratic paper the New York Enquirer in 1827. He spent most of his time there covering Congress in DC and the New York Legislature in Albany. In 1832, he was forced to resign from the Enquirer when they stopped supporting Andrew Jackson, of whom Bennett was an avid supporter. 

After moving to Philadelphia and trying but failing to start a democratic paper in the city, Bennett moved back to NYC where he became impressed with The New York Sun, the city’s first “penny paper”. These papers were sold by vendors on street corners as opposed to by subscription. Bennett was so impressed he applied for a job at the Sun, but was rejected. It was in spite of this rejection that propelled Bennett to start his most famous paper, The New York Herald.

He started the Herald on a $500 budget and out of a cellar. However, as time wore on the paper grew more and more popular for its colorful and concise stories, despite it starting as mainly an editorial opinion paper. The Herald became more well known as Bennett seemed to have a knack for knowing what the public wanted to read about. He called himself “The Napoleon of the Newspaper Press,” claiming that he started the mass circulation of newspapers and kept them free from political control. Overall, the Herald was his crown jewel.

Source(s):

Ritchie, Donald. A. American Journalists: Getting the Story. Oxford University Press. New York. 1997