Joseph Pulitzer

Documentary highlights the life of Joseph Pulitzer

"A newspaper should [do] more than . . . printing every day first-rate news and first-rate editorials. It should have hobbies, undertake reforms, lead crusades, and thereby establish a name for individuality and active public service." Pulitzer

Joseph Pulitzer

Everyone is heard about the Pulitzer Prize, but what about the man behind the prestigious award?

Joseph Pulitzer was a Jewish immigrant who left his native Hungary to become a Union Army recruit during the American Civil War. At 17, he landed penniless in St. Louis and taught himself to speak English. At 22, he was elected to the Missouri legislature and went on to build a small newspaper into a media empire.

Now we can delve into Pulitzer’s fascinating life thanks to the documentary, Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People, which recently premiered as part of the Emmy Award-winning American Masters series on PBS and is now available for streaming on the PBS app.

Pulitzer is variously described as a journalist, media mogul, innovator, entrepreneur and champion of a free press. As publisher of the New York World, he pitted himself against William Randolph Hearst, who published the New York Journal. The two engaged in sensationalist “yellow journalism,” leading up to the Spanish-American War.

However, Pulitzer remained committed to the principles he embraced from the time he was a teenager and used his newspaper to advance them.  In fact, the Pulitzer prizes in journalism are awarded for “the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by any American newspaper during the preceding year,” as specified in Pulitzer’s will.

Among his causes, Pulitzer rallied for taxes on high income earners and against doctored milk, contaminated water and substandard tenement conditions. He supported decent wages, safer working conditions and a shorter workday, and was fighting against entrenched interests before it was popular to do so.

Before the advent of crowdsourcing, Pulitzer ran a campaign to fund a pedestal under the Statue of Liberty, which solicited major donations, as well as pennies from schoolchildren. He fought the one-cent pedestrian toll on the new Brooklyn Bridge with the slogan, “Let the Bridge Be Free/A Penny Is a Workman’s Lunch,” splashed across the front pages of his newspaper.

Toward the end of Pulitzer’s life, he was sued by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt for libel, over his investigation into the US$40 million (which today would be $1 billion) that went missing during the building of the Panama Canal. It went all the way to the Supreme Court and Pulitzer won. In Pulitzer’s words: “Freedom of speech is not a favour to be exercised at the pleasure of the president.” This century-old legal battle ironically echoes U.S. President Donald Trump’s current war with the media.

To engage readers, Pulitzer created dynamic visual layouts and employed
big-name journalists, such as Nellie Bly, who was famous for going undercover into an insane asylum to write an exposé about what went on behind closed doors.

The documentary covers Pulitzer’s cantankerous reputation in the newsroom, but also includes a poignant reading of what he called his first love letter to his wife. His irascible nature can be attributed to his drive and perhaps in part to his severe health problems. He continued to work, even after he went blind and became so sensitive to noise that he had to occasionally retreat to special rooms.

Directed by Oren Rudavsky and narrated by Adam Driver, the documentary includes many photographs and notable interviews with journalists, biographers and scholars. Liev Schreiber provides the voice of Pulitzer.

My sole quibble with the production is Schreiber’s accent. Pulitzer spoke German and French, but his accent would have been Hungarian and Schreiber doesn’t succeed. However, the show succeeds in providing a memorable, focused snapshot of a man, an industry and an era in 85 minutes.

Benefactor The publishing magnate Joseph Pulitzer was largely responsible for the creation of the modern American newspaper. In the last decades of the nineteenth century Pulitzer's New York World combined innovations such as extensive photography and dedicated sportswriters with the sensational stories that attracted a large readership. (Crime and disaster always found a place in the World's pages, and in 1889 the newspaper sent reporter Nellie Bly around its namesake—in 72 days.) He wanted the reporting to be factual as well as lively, and his heart was always with the common man: Pulitzer's investigative reporters rooted out corruption in government even as his editorial pages crusaded against the business trusts, sympathized with the poor, and urged widespread participation in the American democratic process.

Born in Hungary, Pulitzer emigrated to the United States in September 1864 after being recruited to join the Union army in the waning months of the Civil War. Shortly following the war he moved to St. Louis, where from a job reporting for the German-language Westliche Post he rose to become the sole owner of the English-language Post-Dispatch by 1879. Indeed, it was in St. Louis that Pultizer developed his publishing philosophy; in some regards, his 1883 purchase of the World merely gave him a more visible platform. Intermittently active in Democratic politics, Pulitzer served in Congress briefly before realizing he wielded more influence at his newspaper. It was after a losing battle with William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal—both papers claimed circulation of 1.5 million at one time or another—that Pulitzer turned his attention to elevating the standards of the profession. In the last years of his life Pulitzer sought to give Columbia University two million dollars for the establishment of a journalism school. For a time, the University refused; journalism was considered an unsuitable field for a Columbia student. But the trustees eventually relented in the face of Pulitzer's vigorous advocacy, and Columbia has educated a long line of distinguished journalists since opening its journalism school in 1912. Today's Graduate School of Journalism continues to administer the Pulitzer Prizes, created as part of Pulitzer's bequest to recognize excellence in journalism and other endeavors. With affection, Ruben

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Great Pacific Garbage Patch 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in the ocean, seas, and other large bodies of water.

(Source: NationalGeografic) Oceanography

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collection of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean. Marine debris is litter that ends up in oceans, seas, and other large bodies of water.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific trash vortex, spans waters from the West Coast of North America to Japan. The patch is actually comprised of the Western Garbage Patch, located near Japan, and the Eastern Garbage Patch, located between the U.S. states of Hawaii and California. 
The North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone, located a few hundred kilometres north of Hawaii, links these areas of spinning debris together. This convergence zone is where warm water from the South Pacific meets up with cooler water from the Arctic. The zone acts like a highway that moves debris from one patch to another. 
The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre bound the entire Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines a gyre as a large system of swirling ocean currents. Increasingly, however, it also refers to the garbage patch / a vortex of plastic waste and debris broken down into small particles in the ocean.  The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is formed by four currents rotating clockwise around an area of 20 million square kilometres (7.7 million square miles): the California current, the North Equatorial current, the Kuroshio Current, and the North Pacific current.

The area in the centre of a gyre tends to be very calm and stable. The circular motion of the gyre draws debris into this stable centre, where it becomes trapped. A plastic water bottle discarded off the coast of California, for instance, takes the California Current south toward Mexico. There, it may catch the North Equatorial Current, which crosses the vast Pacific. Near the coast of Japan, the bottle may travel north on the powerful Kuroshiro Current. Finally, the bottle travels westward on the North Pacific Current. The gently rolling vortexes of the Eastern and Western Garbage Patches gradually draw in the bottle.
The amount of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch accumulates because much of it is not biodegradable. Many plastics, for instance, do not wear down; they simply break into tinier and tinier pieces.
For many people, the idea of a “garbage patch” conjures up images of an island of trash floating on the ocean. In reality, these patches are almost entirely made up of tiny bits of plastic, called micro plastics. Micro plastics cannot always be seen by the naked eye. Even satellite imagery does not show a giant patch of garbage. The micro plastics of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can simply make the water look like a cloudy soup. This soup is intermixed with larger items, such as fishing gear and shoes. 
The seafloor beneath the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may also be an underwater trash heap. Oceanographers and ecologists recently discovered that about 70% of marine debris actually sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
While oceanographers and climatologists predicted the existence of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, it was a racing boat captain by the name of Charles Moore who actually discovered the trash vortex. Moore was sailing from Hawaii to California after competing in a yachting race. Crossing the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, Moore and his crew noticed millions of pieces of plastic surrounding his ship.
Marine Debris

No one knows how much debris makes up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre is too large for scientists to trawl. In addition, not all of the trash floats on the surface. Denser debris can sink centimetres or even several meters beneath the surface, making the vortex’s area nearly impossible to measure. 
About 54 percent of the debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from land-based activities in North America and Asia. The remaining 20 percent of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch comes from boaters, offshore oilrigs, and large cargo ships that dump or lose debris directly into the water. The majority of this debris—about 705,000 tons—is fishing nets. More unusual items, such as computer monitors and LEGOs, come from dropped shipping containers.
While many different types of trash enter the ocean, plastics make up the majority of marine debris for two reasons. First, plastic’s durability, low cost, and malleability mean that it’s being used in more and more consumer and industrial products. Second, plastic goods do not biodegrade but instead, break down into smaller pieces. 
In the ocean, the sun breaks down these plastics into tinier and tinier pieces, a process known as photo degradation. Most of this debris comes from plastic bags, bottle caps, plastic water bottles, and Styrofoam cups.
Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre. For instance, loggerhead sea turtles often mistake plastic bags for jellies, their favorite food. Albatrosses mistake plastic resin pellets for fish eggs and feed them to chicks, which die of starvation or ruptured organs. 
Seals and other marine mammals are especially at risk. They can get entangled in abandoned plastic fishing nets, which are being discarded largely due to inclement weather and illegal fishing. Seals and other mammals often drown in these forgotten nets—a phenomenon known as “ghost fishing.”
Marine debris can also disturb marine food webs in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. As microplastics and other trash collect on or near the surface of the ocean, they block sunlight from reaching plankton and algae below. Algae and plankton are the most common autotrophs, or producers, in the marine food web. Autotrophs are organisms that can produce their own nutrients from carbon and sunlight.
If algae and plankton communities are threatened, the entire food web may change. Animals that feed on algae and plankton, such as fish and turtles, will have less food. If populations of those animals decrease, there will be less food for apex predators such as tuna, sharks, and whales. Eventually, seafood becomes less available and more expensive for people.
These dangers are compounded by the fact that plastics both leach out and absorb harmful pollutants. As plastics break down through photo degradation, they leach out colorants and chemicals, such as bisphenol A (BPA), that have been linked to environmental and health problems. Conversely, plastics can also absorb pollutants, such as PCBs, from the seawater. These chemicals can then enter the food chain when consumed by marine life.
Patching Up the Patch
Because the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is so far from any country’s coastline, no nation will take responsibility or provide the funding to clean it up. Charles Moore, the man who discovered the vortex, says cleaning up the garbage patch would “bankrupt any country” that tried it.
Many individuals and international organizations, however, are dedicated to preventing the patch from growing. 
Cleaning up marine debris is not as easy as it sounds. Many micro plastics are the same size as small sea animals, so nets designed to scoop up trash would catch these creatures as well. Even if we could design nets that would just catch garbage, the size of the oceans makes this job far too time-consuming to consider. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Debris Program has estimated that it would take 67 ships one year to clean up less than one percent of the North Pacific Ocean. 
Many expeditions have travelled through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Charles Moore, who discovered the patch in 1997, continues to raise awareness through his own environmental organization, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. During a 2014 expedition, Moore and his team used aerial drones, to assess from above the extent of the trash below. The drones determined that there is 100 times more plastic by weight than previously measured. The team also discovered more permanent plastic features, or islands, some over 15 meters (50 feet) in length.
All the floating plastic in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch inspired National Geographic Emerging Explorer David de Rothschild and his team at Adventure Ecology to create a large catamaran made of plastic bottles: the Plastic. The sturdiness of the Plastic displayed the strength and durability of plastics, the creative ways that they can be repurposed, and the threat they pose to the environment when they do not decompose. In 2010, the crew successfully navigated the Plastic from San Francisco, California, to Sydney, Australia. 
Scientists and explorers agree that limiting or eliminating our use of disposable plastics and increasing our use of biodegradable resources will be the best way to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Organizations such as the Plastic Pollution Coalition and the Plastic Oceans Foundation are using social media and direct action campaigns to support individuals, manufacturers, and businesses in their transition from toxic, disposable plastics to biodegradable or reusable materials.
With affection,
Ruben