biography
| name: |
Bennett, James Gordon
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1795–1872)
|
| biography:
| Journalist and newspaper publisher, born in Keith, Moray, NE Scotland, UK. Emigrating to Nova Scotia in 1819, he taught school there and in Boston, MA, before taking up newspaper work in South Carolina, on the Charleston Courier. He became Washington correspondent for the New York Enquirer, a party paper, then associate editor of a paper created by its merger with the Morning Courier, but in 1832 he was dismissed for his views. In 1835, with $500 in capital, he launched the New York Herald, a one-penny daily paper aimed at a mass audience, and embarked on the course that made him famous. Its editorials, unlike those of other papers, were not tied to the views of a particular party, and its coverage extended to sports and fashion, as well as to business and finance. He also featured sensational stories focused on sex and crime, made heavy use of illustrations, dispatched correspondents to far-flung regions, and stressed getting the news fast. By the 1860s the Herald was the city's most popular paper, though it did not win great prestige. He retired in 1867, to be succeeded by his son. |
|
|
