New York Herald Tribune - Origins

Origins

The New York Herald and the New York Tribune were established in 1835 and 1841, respectively. The papers were very different: the Herald was a penny press newspaper whose editor, James Gordon Bennett was a firm Democrat and a pioneer in reporting crime. The Tribune, founded by Horace Greeley, was a Whig (and later Republican) newspaper sold as a sober alternative to some of the excesses of the penny press.

The Herald was the largest circulation newspaper in New York City until the 1880s (when Joseph Pulitzer's World overtook it), while the Tribune's weekly publication was circulated throughout the United States.

The Tribune went into decline in the 1870s, after Greeley died. The paper was taken over by Whitelaw Reid, who used it to further his ambitions in the Republican Party; circulation gradually declined under his leadership. The Herald, taken over by James Gordon Bennett, Jr. in 1867, continued to perform well through the century. Bennett had a strong commitment to international news, and financed Henry Stanley's expedition to find David Livingstone. He later founded the Paris Herald as an English-language paper for Europe.

Bennett moved permanently to Paris in 1877 following a scandal in New York: the publisher, arriving drunk at a party in the mansion of his fiancee's parents, reportedly urinated in the fireplace or the piano (the exact location differed in witnesses' memories). The engagement was broken off, and Bennett remained a bachelor into his 70s. Despite the move, Bennett continued to direct New York operations, usually by telegram, and his distance hurt the overall quality of the paper.

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