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If you see the study of history as a route to informed interpretation of the present, Oren Rudavsky’s Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People is essential and timely viewing. The film is an investigative biopic about the legendary publisher who changed the face and flow of modern journalism, and rewrote the rule book on using newspapers — the prime media outlet during his life time — to influence the political, social and economic milieu at the heart of the American Dream.

Most people know Pulitzer primarily for the coveted journalism award presented in his name, but this fascinating and powerful American influencer has an extraordinary life story and the release of this thoroughly researched documentary is timely indeed.

Using archival footage, still photographs and images of the illustrated front pages of Pulitzer’s newspapers — namely the St Louis Post and Dispatch and, later, the New York World — with narration voiced by Adam Driver and other notable talents, based primarily on appropriate vintage commentaries, as well as recently filmed on camera interviews with journalism historians and other experts — the documentary traces Pulitzer’s rise to prominence from the time of his arrival in the US as a penniless Hungarian immigrant who made his way into American society by becoming a conscript in a German-speaking regiment in the Union Army during the Civil War, through his rise as a progressive journalist and publisher who used his newspapers as a platform for his progressive point of view. In effect, he championed the people, making news and social advice available to those who, like himself, immigrated to the US and had to make their way into the American way of life.

After Pulitzer bought the New York World for a staggering $400,000, he transformed the broadsheet into America’s first national newspaper, and invented a new advertising rate scheme with progressive fees based on circulation. He used the national newspaper as a platform from which he fearlessly criticized public policy and the individuals responsible for making it — including President Theodore Roosevelt, who sued Pulitzer for ‘criminal libel’ in a precedent setting Supreme Court case in which the New York World‘s position was famously upheld on every point.

The infamous ‘yellow journalism’ feud between Pulitzer and rival publisher, William Randolph Hearst, is well chronicled, too, with commentary about how the competition for headlines and influence transformed the nation’s news gathering and reporting methods and style.

Joseph Pulitzer, the creative, enterprising, effective and ambitious media man, is referred to in the film as the Rupert Murdock of his day — but with a very different political orientation.

In addition to following Pulitzer’s public and professional life, the biodoc reveals his personal struggles with ill health, bouts of insomnia, depression and, in later life, blindness. He grew increasing reclusive, eventually living in near seclusion aboard his yacht.

While profiling the prolific Pulitzer, the documentary also chronicles the history and development of American journalism from the time of the Civil War through the period leading up to World War I, raising appropriate questions about how journalism transforms society and is responsible for influencing political, social and economic developments. It is a fascinating and timely film.


Title: Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People

Directors: Oren Rudavsky

Release Date: September 1, 2018

Running Time: 84 minutes

Language: English with some German

Screenwriter: Documentary compilation

Distribution Company: First Run Features/American Masters/WNET


Official Website

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