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Robert R. McCormick was a famed American publisher. He was a business leader who earned his place in the publishing industry via the multimillion-dollar moneymaker Chicago Tribune.
McCormick inherited The Chicago Tribune from an uncle. At the time, the paper had under 200,000 subscribers, was the third largest newspaper outfit in Chicago and was just barely surviving.
McCormick helped put the paper's financial picture back on solid ground.
The Robert R. Mccormick Story
Where others had it hard, challenges proved easier to overcome for Robert R. McCormick. He was the product of the union of two noted families. His dad worked as staff secretary to Robert Todd Lincoln in London while his mom was the daughter of the founder of the Republican Party, Joseph Medill.
McCormick attended school at Yale University in 1899. He received his law degree at Northwestern University. In 1908, he was one of those who co-founded the law firm Kirkland & Ellis. In 1911, McCormick took over as president of the Chicago Tribune.
Politically, McCormick was awfully conservative. However, with matters concerning his business, McCormick was highly innovative and pioneering. In 1924, he purchased a radio station. McCormick became the first to broadcast the World Series, the Kentucky Derby and the Indianapolis 500. Twelve years later, McCormick built the Baie-Comeau town in Quebec. He also established a paper mill in the same area.
The Tribune company was proof of McCormick's exceptional organizational skills. There was even a time when McCormick's newspaper empire boasted of three major broadsheets - Washington Times-Herald, Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News. One expert pegged the company's earnings at $10 million. By 1953, the company and its 14 subsidiary holdings in the US and Canada were worth nearly $250 million.
Robert R. McCormick was acknowledged by many as one of the last truly great journalists. He implanted his individual personality on his newspaper. McCormick supported individualism and constantly fought for press freedom and free enterprise. Other quarters vilified him for his staunch isolationist and conservative views.
But despite stirring multiple controversies of the personal kind, the newspaper he managed still grew to be the largest and most powerful paper in the Midwest area. He passed away on April 1, 1955. Upon his death, the company's newspaper circulation was estimated at above one million.
The Robert R. McCormick Quick Bio
Full name: Robert Rutherford McCormick
Birth date: July 30, 1880
Birth place: Illinois
Company: Chicago Tribune
Industry: Publishing Print Media
Key success traits: strong conviction, indomitable courage and topnotch organizational skills
Additional:
A true isolationist, Robert R. McCormick opposed the World Court, United Nations and League of Nations. McCormick's guns were firmly trained on socialism, communism and British imperialism. His primary heroes were Gen. Douglas MacArthur and senator Robert A. Taft.
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