In 1944 Eugene Collins Pulliam bought the Indianapolis Star for nearly $2.5 million. It was the first of four major newspaper purchases that would gain Pulliam national attention and bring his brand of right-wing conservatism to the readers of two states. These purchases would be the last in his sixty-three-year career as a publisher, which spanned several states and fifty-one newspapers. His grandson and biographer, Russell Pulliam, called him the "last of the newspaper titans." But Eugene Pulliam, the son of a Methodist circuit-riding minister, was also criticized for being a kingmaker in the Republican party (an "energetic behind-the-scene GOPoliticker," in the words of Time magazine) who slanted his news coverage to help those he supported.

Pulliam grew up on the plains of Kansas. His father, Irvin B. Pulliam, was a salesman for a group of wholesale grocers in Danville, Illinois. He converted to Methodism after attending a series of...