LEGACY: A Biography of Walter and Moses Annenberg - Review

Washington Monthly, June, 1999 by Matthew Cooper

LEGACY A Biography of Walter and Moses Annenberg by Christopher Ogden Little, Brown & Co., $29.95

Christopher Ogden is right up there with Dominick Dunne as one of our best chroniclers of the rich. Life of the Party is his dishy biography of Pamela Harriman, the late doyenne of the Democratic party. This time Ogden has set his sights on the Annenbergs, one of America's foremost media families. At first the Annenbergs seem like a slightly dull choice for Ogden. Walter Annenberg and his father, Moses, never captured the popular imagination a la William Randolph Hearst. And Annenberg's publications--the Daily Racing Form, TV Guide, Seventeen, the Philadelphia Inquirer--never had the cachet of the phalanx of Conde Nast's glossies. But this is a great read--both as rogue-to-riches yarn and for what it reveals about American publishing.

Working with access to family correspondence and records, Ogden tells the story of the Annenbergs from their escape from the turn-of-the-century pogroms to their rise as America's biggest living philanthropists. Moses, a poor immigrant, worked his way up as a distributor for Hearst, coming up with sales gimmicks for newspaper subscribers--like giving away spoons with their state's name on them. Branching out on his own, he acquired the Daily Racing Form and made it into the indispensable bible of trackgoers at a time when American sports was a trifecta of baseball, boxing, and playing the ponies. Today, alas, most tracks are moribund and only clear a profit because of slot machines.

Moses' idea was simple: give bettors a statistical guide to the horses--their performances, bloodlines, etc.--and specialize it for each track. By the '30s, Moses had become a big deal in American publishing, having acquired the Philadelphia Inquirer. A Republican who helped bring down the Democratic Governor in Harrisburg, Moses became a thorn in the side of FDR. In a little-known and ugly aspect of the New Deal, FDR--along with tough guys like Harold Ickes--went after Moses on tax evasion charges. Ogden irrefutably demonstrates that it was a political vendetta, even though Moses skirted the law. He died behind bars.

Walter took over from his father. After the war, he spied the rise of a "teen" culture with disposable income. He started Seventeen, which became immensely profitable. Later, he picked up a television publication at a time when newspapers myopically ignored television and transformed it into TV Guide--still the No. 1 magazine in America.

What made the younger Annenberg exceptional was his philanthropy and his smarts in using his donations to leverage more. He pledged $50 million to the United Negro College Fund on the condition the organization raise $200 million. Much to their own surprise, they did. He gave $500 million dollars to improve public schools. His art donations to the Met represented the greatest single windfall for an American museum in the second half of the 20th century.

Annenberg was a brilliant businessman but a spotty journalist. Insecure, he blacklisted people when he ran the Inquirer paper, refusing to print their names. This could be absurd when it came to people like Milton Shapp, who went on to be governor. The paper is far, far better today as part of the Knight-Ridder chain. Still, you have to miss the quirkiness of the pre-corporate media. Annenberg's rise reminds us how interesting the American press is when it's owned by families who are less concerned about immediate profits than are shareholder-driven corporations.

Sure, the Annenbergs were never the journalistic equals of the Sulzbergers or the Grahams (my bosses). But with TV Guide and Seventeen they were real innovators--and fun to watch.

MATTHEW COOPER, a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly, is a deputy Washington bureau chief for Newsweek.