E. W. Scripps, the Illinois farm boy who grew up to build the first major newspaper chain in the United States and to found what later became United Press International, was a paradox. He based his success on his support for the working class, yet he paid his own employees low wages and amassed a fortune of $50,000,000. He professed faith in the "common people," but he was anything but common: he was an extreme individualist who wore rough work clothes even on formal occasions and had as his motto, "Whatever is, is wrong." He was a large and burly man who instilled fear in others with his gaze; but he was sickly all of his life, and those who met him were impressed by the limpness of his handshake. He was a hypochondriac who wore a skullcap indoors to ward off colds and moved to the desert for...