James Creelman was an American journalist. He is famous in history for securing a 1908 interview for Pearson's Magazine with Mexican president Porfirio Díaz, in which the strongman said that he would not run for the presidency in the 1910 elections.
Background
Ethnicity:
Creelman's father was born to an Ulster-Scottish family who migrated to Montreal from Limavady, Ireland. His mother was of Scottish descent.
James Creelman was born on November 12, 1859 Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the son of a boiler inspector, Matthew Creelman, and homemaker, Martha (née) Dunwoodie. He proved his independence and self-sufficiency early. His parents separated when he was a child, and at only twelve years old he left Montreal and journeyed four hundred miles on foot to be with his mother in New York City. According to Ronald S. Marmarelli in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, he "arrived at his mother's rooming house with worn-out shoes and a nickel in his pocket."
Education
James attended Talmage's Lay Theological College.
Career
True to his rebellious ways, James defied his mother's insistence to attend school and got a job working for the Protestant Episcopal church's newspaper, despite the fact that his mother was a fervent Presbyterian. Apparently convinced he had discovered his calling in the newspaper industry, he scurried between similar jobs, and at the tender age of eighteen earned himself a position with the New York Herald as a cub reporter.
It was at his post with the Herald that he first integrated his thrill-seeking proclivities with his incredibly enthusiastic and ambitious nature, which led to his defining style and distinguished career. Creelman began to make a name for himself by risking his life in publicized events, such as volunteering to ride in a hot air balloon and surviving its crash and drifting off to sea with a fellow thrill-seeker in floatation suits. He seized another high-profile opportunity by going to Kentucky and putting himself right in the middle of the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud, where he survived being shot by one of the Hatfields. As his reputation and confidence grew, he sought and secured interviews with several incredible public and historical figures. Some of his most notable meetings include interviews with the legendary Sitting Bull, with literary giant Leo Tolstoy, and with Pope Leo XIII. Such high-profile interviews exposed as much of Creelman's character as they did his subject's. For example, instead of dedicating the report of his meeting with Sitting Bull to the description of the Native American's deep-rooted philosophies and profound understanding of existence, Creelman could not help but insert his own presence and assume Sitting Bull's perceptions of Creelman himself.
Creelman went to exhaustive lengths to secure seemingly impossible meetings, enduring bureaucracy and resistance at all levels, knowing his efforts would earn him recognition and favor among the American people.
In 1889 the Herald asked Creelman to serve in Europe as its special correspondent, and he was quick to accept the post. Through all of his escapades, Creelman never missed the opportunity to define himself as a veritable slave to the unquenchable thirsts of the American public. Hearst hired him for the New York Journal at the height of Creelman's popularity in 1896 to serve as special commissioner to the capitals of Europe.
Creelman's reporting was skillfully and purposefully descriptive, exploiting all of the virtues of on-the-scene reporting and making his first-hand accounts colorful and exceptional among other writers and reporting efforts. He did not merely convey the events, but lived them, and this unique approach led credibility and savvy to his work that was unavailable by any other means, thus making him untouchable by his competitors, whether they were real or imagined. Creelman was incredibly competitive, which, along with making a name for himself, was a driving force behind his seemingly limitless energy and courage. Reporting on his foray during the Greco-Turkish War in 1896 as "the first correspondent to cross the frontier and enter the Turkish lines," Creelman's attention went to the threat to his exclusivity presented by a London correspondent rather than the imminent dangers to his life: "But now I was face to face with a rival who would undoubtedly claim the credit unless I reached the telegraph station at Larissa before him." These types of confessions made Creelman's personality and exploits as much news as the conflicts and events themselves.
Creelman defined history and its major players by his personalized language and opinionated labels. His referral of the Spanish commander in Cuba as "the Butcher" and "the most sinister figure of the nineteenth century" concretized impressions and guided Americans' perceptions of world events.
Creelman wielded his power as a propaganda machine, but instead of abiding by a certain country's viewpoint or agenda, he advanced his own opinions. Creelman created the image and sensation of a one-man quest to right the wrongs of human civilization.
Creelman posed rhetorical questions and challenges to the world with heart-wrenching passion and sincerity.
On his way to the front to cover the war, Creelman died suddenly in Berlin, of Bright's Disease. He was buried in Brooklyn, New York.
James Creelman - rebel, adventurer, and self-perceived servant to the "insatiate American newspaper public" - willingly and repeatedly threw himself onto battlefields and into harm's way to bring first-hand news accounts and high-profile interviews to readers of his newspaper columns. Never hiding behind any pretense for objective, detached journalism, Creelman made himself an irreplaceable commodity, always earning the right to share his unique viewpoints and on-the- scene experiences of world events, and established himself at the center of it all.
James perceived his profession as a newspaper journalist to be in a league of its own, dictated by the unruly whims of the public and subject to singular motivations and indescribable specifications.
Quotations:
Upon meeting the pope and writing about being overwhelmed by the presence and expression of this "white Vicar of Christ," Creelman said, according to Marmarelli, 'That moment I forgot my newspaper and the news-thirsty multitudes of New York." This, of course, was part of his emotional eclat, as he was always aware of his audience. Even his description of "news-thirsty multitudes" betrayed his allegiance to his craft over his pope's "appealing and majestic" presence by which Creelman claimed to be taken. After leaving the pope, Creelman wrote, "I left the palace drunken with joy. How my old comrades in New York would stare when they learned that I had reached the unreachable! How my newspaper would herald the feat to the ends of the earth!" When the pope inquired if he was among the "Faithful," Creel man answered, "I am what journalism has made me," as if there was an obvious implied reality within that response.
Personality
Creelman was a flamboyant personality throughout his life.
Quotes from others about the person
According to Marmarelli, William Randolf Hearst had this to say about Creelman: "The beauty about Creelman is the fact that whatever you give him to do instantly becomes in his mind the most important assignment ever given any writer. Of course, it's a form of egotism. He thinks that the very fact of the job being given him means that it's a task of surpassing importance, else it would not have been given to so great a man as he... Creelman finds any assignment is dignified by being given him. That's why he's so useful."
Connections
Creelman married Alice Leffingwell Buell of Marietta, Ohio on December 10, 1891. The couple had four children: Edward Dunwoodie, James Ashmore, Constance Alice, and Eileen Buell.
Father:
Matthew Creelman
Mother:
Martha (Dunwoodie) Creelman
Spouse:
Alice Leffingwell Buell
Son:
Edward Dunwoodie
Son:
James Ashmore
Daughter:
Constance Alice
Daughter:
Eileen Buell
She married Frederick Morgan Davenport Jr., son of New York Republican congressman Frederick Morgan Davenport.
