Joseph Pulitzer was a Hungarian-American politician and a newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He became a leading national figure in the U.S. Democratic Party and served one term representing New York's 9th congressional district.
In the 1890s, the fierce competition between his World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal led both to develop the techniques of yellow journalism, which won over readers with sensationalism, sex, crime, and graphic horrors. Circulation reached a million copies a day and the journalism opened the way to mass-circulation newspapers that depended on advertising revenue, rather than on cover price or on political-party subsidies. Such newspapers attracted readers by using multiple forms of news, gossip, entertainment, and advertising.
Pulitzer's name is best known for the Pulitzer Prizes established in 1917 as a result of the specified endowment in his will to Columbia University. The university awards prizes annually to recognize and reward excellence in American journalism, photography, literature, history, poetry, music, and drama.