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This
page looks at the Annenbergs as a point of reference in
considering other media czars.
It covers -
Moses Annenberg
Arguably Walter Annenberg (1908-2002), like Joseph
Pulitzer, will survive as creator
of the Annenberg Foundation and other good works rather
than as a publishing giant. Money can't buy you love but,
say the cynics, does buy a better class of publicist and
assorted cultural bibelots.
Father Moses Annenberg (1877-1942) is arguably the more
interesting character and publisher but has received less
attention than his son. After migrating from East Prussia
he built Hearst's newspaper distribution
operations in Chicago and Milwaukee at a time when the
business involved bruised faces, broken legs or worse.
Newsweek later claimed that Annenberg's name "once
struck terror in the hearts of strong men", characterising
Moses and his brother as having "pounded their way
to fame" and demurely commenting that their employees
are
generally given credit for sowing the seeds that made
Chicago and gangland synonymous.
Concurrent with successful property development in Wisconsin,
New Jersey and New York he served as publisher of the
Wisconsin Daily News (acquired by Hearst), clashed
with James Cox in Miami and became
the dominant publisher of horse racing guides and racing
wire services with the Daily Racing Form and Nationwide
News Service.
The FBI, accurately or otherwise, estimated his income
in 1936 at US$6m per year and it is clear that although
Nationwide supplied information to many legitimate newspapers,
it also freely sold information to bookies. A perspective
is provided by David Hochfelder's 2001 Partners in
Crime: The Telegraph Industry, Finance Capitalism, and
Organized Gambling, 1870-1920 (PDF).
He moved into mainstream newspapers - notably the Philadelphia
Inquirer (claimed to be the oldest continuously-published
metro title, previously owned by Curtis
and characterised as the "Republican Bible of Pennsylvania")
- and a range of scandal sheets on the US east coast.
His opinions, like those of his son, were vigorously expressed.
Roosevelt advisor Harold Ickes, succumbing to hyperbole,
described him "as cruel, as ruthless, and as lawless
as Hitler himself". Moses died soon after serving
two years in federal prison for large-scale tax offences.
Walter Annenberg
Son Walter established Seventeen magazine in 1944
and TV Guide in 1953. Both were highly lucrative.
His Triangle publications grew to include The Philadelphia
Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, six
AM radio stations, six FM stations and six television
stations along with a range of minor publications.
He was noted for well-publicised philanthropies - often
concerned with journalism education.
The emphasis on editorial standards and journalistic ethics
was ironic, considering recurrent criticism of Annenberg
for
- unashamed
abuses of power as a newspaper publisher and broadcaster,
- pursuing
vendettas against commercial/political opponents,
- engaging
in McCormick and Hearst-style
smear campaigns and
- maintaining
a blacklist that ranged from individuals (sometimes
airbrushed out of news photos) to sports teams.
He
was a major supporter of the Republican Party and served
as US ambassador to the UK under Richard Nixon before
retiring to a personal Xanadu in Palm Springs and disposing
of his publishing interests. TV Guide and other
magazines were acquired by Rupert Murdoch
as part of a US$3.2 billion deal; the major newspapers
had earlier been sold to Knight.
studies
Arguably neither Annenberg has gained the biographer that
they deserve, one that will acknowledge their achievements
while grounding that achievement through discussion of
business practice and comparison with
- similar
potentates such as Hearst, Scripps, McCormick, Pulitzer
and Loeb (or with figures such as Kennedy)
- legitimation
and image-building of other philanthropists such as
Rockefeller and Gates.
Father
and son were portrayed in the facile The Annenbergs
(New York: Simon & Schuster 1982) by John Cooney and
Gaeton Fonzi's Annenberg: A Biography of Power
(New York: Weybright & Talley 1970), the latter replete
with gems such as
If
there is one single factor that has shaped Walter Annenberg's
character and, indeed, given guiding direction to his
life it is the legend and legacy of Moses Annenberg.
No man so venerates the memory of his father. No man
is so haunted by it.
Christopher
Ogden's Legacy: A Biography of Moses & Walter Annenberg
(New York: Little Brown 1999) is more inclusive.
There is a perspective in Memoirs of a Maverick Publisher
(New York: Simon & Schuster 1962), an intelligent account
by Philadelphia rival J. David Stern.
the foundation
The Annenberg Foundation
has assets of around US$3 billion, with major programs
in arts and public education.
Philanthropies by Annenberg included large gifts to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, establishment of the Annenberg
School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania
(ASCP)
(US$239m) and the Annenberg School for Communication at
the University of Southern California (ASC)
(US$177m), US$131m to his old school and purchasing a
baby elephant for the Philadelphia Zoo.
His personal assets were estimated in 2002 at around US$2
billion, including US$1 billion of impressionist art.
Philanthropy Magazine, apparently underwhelmed
by his largesse (in contrast to the fawning tone of many
journalists and media studies academics), characterised
him as a "bold entrepreneur and timid philanthropist".
It sniped
-
Consider
Annenberg’s best known grant, a 1993 $500 million contribution
to school reform. Some of this money will go to useful
causes, such as $50 million to the National Institute
of School Reform at Brown University. ... But most of
the rest appears to have been given to study groups,
consultants, researchers, bureaucrats, and people who
make a living thinking about schools. Parents and children
will be lucky to see 25 cents on the dollar by the time
the money gets to them.
Jack
Shafer of Slate suggested that the obituaries might
have appropriately been titled "Billionaire Son of Mobster,
Enemy of Journalism, and Nixon Toady Exits for Hell—Forced
To Leave Picassos and van Goghs at Metropolitan Museum"
and commented
The
ugly arc of Annenberg's life rivals that of fellow press
baron William Randolph Hearst or even his fictional
stand-in, Charles Foster Kane. It's a life that proves
that you can earn polite notices in death no matter
how you lived if you give away a billion dollars to
the right places before you croak
 next
page (Annenberg chronology)
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