Bennett, James Gordon, 1795-1872, American newspaper proprietor, b. Keith, Scotland. He came to America in 1819 and won a reputation as Washington correspondent of the New York Enquirer and later (1829-32) as assistant editor of the combined Courier and Enquirer. On May 6, 1835, he launched his New York Herald, a new penny paper of four four-column pages. His capital totaled $500 and his office was a Wall St. cellar, yet in less than a year the paper sold almost 15,000 copies daily. Bennett's innovations made the Herald a landmark in the history of American journalism: in his brief editorials he criticized all political parties; he included new fields of news, notably that of Wall St. finance; he first established (1838) European correspondents for his paper; he first used the telegraph extensively in newspaper work; and he first used illustrations for news articles. Although the Herald initially gained an audience by playing up sensational and cheap news, it later earned a reputation as a full and accurate paper, particularly in the period of the Civil War, when Bennett employed 63 war correspondents and spent $525,000 on war reporting.