James Gordon Bennett, Sr.

For more information on James Gordon Bennett, visit Britannica.com.

Bennett, Lt Gen Henry Gordon (1887-1962). An Australian, and one of the youngest brigadier generals in the empire armies in 1918, Bennett became the senior ranking militia general by the outbreak of war in 1939. A quarrelsome nature denied him early divisional commands in the Australian Imperial Force, but he was given the 8th Division in September 1940, which he led in the disastrous Malaya and Singapore campaign. Unlike MacArthur in a similar situation, he had no orders to return to Australia after empire forces collapsed, therefore by ‘escaping’ at the time of surrender he unquestionably abandoned his command. He then commanded III Corps in Western Australia until resigning in May 1944. He remains a controversial figure, probably beyond rehabilitation.

— Jeffrey Grey

The Scottish-born American journalist James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872) developed editorial techniques that promoted readership and freed the press of its need for financial support from political parties and other special-interest groups.

James Gordon Bennett was born near Keith, Banffshire, Scotland, on Sept. 1, 1795. In his early 20s he migrated to Nova Scotia, where he taught briefly before going to the United States to work for a Boston book publisher. Bennett went to New York City, then Charleston, S.C., where he worked as a translator for the newspaper Courier. He soon returned north and worked for the New York Courier. Twice Bennett tried to launch a paper of his own, but each time his paper failed for lack of political support. These rejections caused him to turn his back on political patronage as being too uncertain and demeaning.

In 1835, at the age of 40, with $500 as working capital, Bennett launched the New York Herald, the paper that made him famous. An excessively egotistical man, he wanted to be the Shakespeare of journalism. By five each morning he was at his desk - a plank supported by two barrels. Brilliant but brassy, he issued a saucy, informative sheet and used sensational techniques, particularly in the Robinson-Jewett murder case, which was a sordid affair.

Bennett, who had a compulsion to be first with the news, initiated daily Wall Street reports, sent small boats out to intercept oceangoing vessels for news, initiated the society page, and was the first to use the telegraph extensively for news coverage. He insisted that advertisers change their ads frequently, a policy that skyrocketed consumer sales and caused merchants seeking similar results to flock to the Herald. He collected in advance.

Bennett's pugnacious writing and his flair for self-promotion frequently got him into trouble. He suffered severe beatings in the streets for inglorious references to his enemies. Twice he was mauled and caned by a former employer, and a few years later a Wall Street broker used a horsewhip on him. In 1850 a defeated political candidate and his two brothers knocked Bennett down and beat him as his wife watched helplessly. Finally Mrs. Bennett could no longer bear the pressures and the street indignities, and she fled to Europe with the three Bennett children.

In 1867 Bennett turned over the operation of the Herald to his son, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. The elder Bennett visited the office frequently, then kept in touch by direct telegraph wire until June 1, 1872, when he died in his sleep.

Though so abrasive in life that he was a social outcast, Bennett was praised after death. His old opponent Horace Greeley said that Bennett's success was due to personal journalism. The New York Sun more shrewdly remarked that Bennett emancipated the press "from the domination of sects, parties, and cliques…."

Further Reading

Biographies of Bennett include Don C. Seitz, The James Gordon Bennetts: Father and Son, Proprietors of the New York Herald (1928), and Oliver Carlson, The Man Who Made News: James Gordon Bennett (1942). Interesting aspects are treated in Richard O'Connor, The Scandalous Mr. Bennett (1962). Other helpful works are Oswald Garrison Villard, Some Newspapers and Newspaper-Men (1923; rev. ed. 1926); Willard Grosvenor Bleyer, Main Currents in the History of American Journalism (1927); and Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism (1941; 3d ed. 1962), which offers a concise account of Bennett.

Additional Sources

Fermer, Douglas, James Gordon Bennett and the New York herald: a study of editorial opinion in the Civil War era, 1854-1867, London: Royal Historical Society; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986.

Herd, Harold, Seven editors, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1977.

Seitz, Don Carlos, The James Gordon Bennetts: father & son, proprietors of the New York Herald, New York, Beekman Publishers, 1974.

(Senior: 1795-1872; Junior: 1841-1918), editors and newspaper publishers. James Gordon Bennett roared into the small, tidy world of American newspaper journalism brandishing his pen like a Highland claymore, and when he was through, it was a combative arena that he dominated. Born in Scotland, Bennett was an outsider in his own culture--a seminary-educated Catholic who extended his education by voracious reading, especially in the emerging romantics. He immigrated to the United States in 1819, lean and hungry, and began to earn a living as a teacher and swift, forceful writer on assorted cultural, economic, and political topics for newspapers in Charleston and New York City.

In 1835, after a stint as Washington correspondent for the New-York Courier and Enquirer, Bennett founded the New-York Herald on a capital of five hundred dollars, initially serving not only as editor-owner but as the entire staff. The Herald appeared daily (a relatively new practice at the time) and sold for a cent a copy (an even newer idea that Bennett did not invent but built on brilliantly). Most daringly, the Herald aimed at self-support through a large circulation and advertising at a time when papers lived only through subsidies by political parties or the expensive subscriptions of a limited business clientele. Bennett broke new ground by filling the paper with hitherto-disdained news from police courts, sporting fields, theaters, and other sources that appealed to "the great masses of the community." But the Herald also featured first-rate coverage of national and international events, and it both reported and made use of the latest technological innovations just as fast as Bennett could reinvest his growing earnings. By 1860 great steam presses were daily stamping out up to fifty thousand copies of each day's paper, and each edition, well written and well illustrated, was full of the latest news gathered by telegraph, mail trains, and ocean steamers.

The dynamo of the whole enterprise, however, was Bennett. He combined Byronic vanity and canny pragmatism, wrote daily first-person editorials delivering abrasive opinions on everything, and unblushingly declared himself the "Napoleon of the newspaper," the man who had infused it with "life, glowing eloquence, philosophy, taste, sentiment, wit, and humor." Though castigated, horsewhipped, and boycotted at first, he was also irresistibly read, and on his retirement in 1867, the Herald's annual profits were estimated at $400,000. Bennett did not create the social circumstances that generated a democratic readership, but his combination of genius and brass was ideally suited to Jacksonian era journalism.

After Bennett died, his son followed somewhat erratically in his footsteps. Young Bennett had been educated abroad and returned to the United States to serve in the navy during the Civil War and, at war's end, to take over the paper. He continued the senior Bennett's lavish spending on circulation-building enterprises. For example, he sent Henry M. Stanley to find David Livingstone in Africa, and he financed an exploring expedition in Arctic waters. But he lacked his father's curiosity and zest for newspapering's day-in and day-out combination of grind and theater. In 1877, after a domestic scandal, he moved back to Europe. He kept pumping money into the Herald but also withdrew prodigal sums to spend on his private pleasures, especially speed. He raced yachts and horses, and when they came along, balloons, airplanes, and automobiles. In the 1890s the Herald was outstripped in New York by its brassier young rivals, William Randolph Hearst's Journal and Joseph Pulitzer's World. After Bennett's death the debt-burdened Herald was merged in 1922 with the bitterest rival of its early years, the New York Tribune.

Bibliography:

Oliver Carlson, The Man Who Made News: James Gordon Bennett (1942); Don C. Seitz, The James Gordon Bennetts, Father and Son (1928); Bernard A. Weisberger, The American Newspaperman (1961).

Author:

Bernard A. Weisberger

See also Magazines and Newspapers.

Quotes:

"Remember son, many a good story has been ruined by over verification."

"I have made mistakes, but I never made the mistake of claiming that I never made one."

James Gordon Bennett, Sr.
Born	1 September 1795 Newmill,Scotland
Died	1 June 1872 New York City
Occupation	Publisher
Children	James Gordon Bennett, Jr.

For other persons named James Bennett, see James Bennett (disambiguation).

James Gordon Bennett (1 September 1795 – 1 June 1872) was the founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald and a major figure in the history of American newspapers.

Born to a poor farmer in Newmill, Scotland, Bennett emigrated to Nova Scotia, where he taught bookkeeping, then to Portland, Maine. He was in Boston by January 1820. He worked as a proofreader and bookseller before the Charleston Courier hired him to translate Spanish news reports. He moved to New York City in 1823 where he worked as a freelance paper writer and editorial assistant.

In May 1835, Bennett began the Herald after years of failing to start a paper. In April 1836, it shocked readers with front–page coverage of the murder of prostitute Helen Jewett; Bennett conducted the first-ever newspaper interview for it. The Herald initiated a cash–in–advance policy for advertisers, which became the industry standard. Bennett was also at the forefront of using the latest technology to gather and report the news, and added illustrations produced from woodcuts. In 1839, Bennett was granted the first ever exclusive interview to a United States President, Martin Van Buren.^[1]

The Herald was officially independent in its politics, but endorsed William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, and John C. Frémont. Bennett supported James Buchanan as tensions rose over slavery. He endorsed John C. Breckinridge for the 1860 presidential campaign, then shifted to John Bell. He promoted George B. McClellan in 1864, but endorsed no candidate. Although he opposed Abraham Lincoln, Bennett backed the Union, then took the lead to turn the president into a martyr after his assassination. He favored most of Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction proposals.

By the time Bennett turned control of the Herald over to his son James Gordon Bennett Jr. in 1866, it had the highest circulation in America. However, under the younger Bennett's stewardship, the paper declined, and, after his death, it was merged with its arch-rival, the New York Tribune.

The phrase "Gordon Bennett" which denotes exasperation or shock derives from the son, or amongst the FDNY where it is highest medal a New York City Firefighter can earn(compared to the Medal of Honor for the US Military), "That meal was so good, it should win the Gordon Bennett!"

He also has a street named for him from West 181st to Hillside Ave in Northern Manhattan a.k.a. Washington Heights, a park named in his honor is also along Bennett Ave.

Notes

1. ^ Paletta, Lu Ann and Worth, Fred L. (1988). "The World Almanac of Presidential Facts".

External links

• James L. Crouthamel; Bennett's New York Herald and the Rise of the Popular Press Syracuse University Press, 1989
• Mr. Lincoln and New York: James Gordon Bennett
• HarpWeek Biography of Gordon
• Newspapers, 1775–1860 by Frank W. Scott
• James Gordon Bennett's Gravesite

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)