Charles Chapin, the notorious (he also went to Sing Sing for murdering his wife of 39 years) city editor of Joseph Pulitzer's
New York Evening World, stocked the
Evening World's rewrite desk with such talents as
Irvin S. Cobb, a man not known for excessive solicitude. One day word reached the newsroom that Chapin was ill.
"Dear me," Cobb famously remarked, "let us hope it's nothing trivial." The fearsome and despotic Chapin achieved some of his renown for the sheer number of reporters he fired - 108 - usually for showing up slightly late and with a flimsy excuse. A good, fast-paced and captivating biography of Charles E. Chapin (1858-1930) is
The Rose Man of Sing Sing: A True Tale of Life, Murder, and Redemption in the Age of Yellow Journalism by James McGrath Morris.
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