Joseph Pulitzer encounters degrading anti-Semitism in his quest to forge a career as a reporter in post Civil War St. Louis, but this does not stop him from confronting the good old boys corruption of the Bourbon Democrats, and create the St. Louis Post Dispatch as the primary newspaper in St. Louis. When John Cockerill, his editor, kills a man in self defense, Pulitzer becomes ostracized by the ire of the local community.

Pulitzer buys an obscure paper in New York City called The World from the ruthless financier Jay Gould. There he again takes on the powers that be, and unseats the traditional papers that have a far more conservative platform. Rising to success and ensuring the election of Grover Cleveland in 1884, Pulitzer's paper leads the pack. His adversaries confront him, however, and he faces anti-Semitism and malice in his rise to the top. William Randolph Hearst appears in New York, and takes the Pulitzer sensationalism style to grandiose exaggeration, and Pulitzer begins to crack under the pressure. As a perfectionist and a workaholic, Pulitzer pushes himself past the brink and has a breakdown that leaves him legally blind and a nervous wreck for the rest of his natural life.

Using a patient British secretary to communicate with his papers, Pulitzer takes on Hearst in the circulation battle of the ages, where the two battle for influence with the onset of the Spanish American War. Though Cockerill warns Pulitzer that Hearst is dragging him down into hucksterism rather than journalism, Pulitzer does not give up the fight. This pioneer journalist eventually has to have some real self reflection about what kind of man he really is, and face the fact that he is being buried by the avalanche of news promotion that he himself started.