The Battle of Ink and Ice: A Sensational Story of News Barons, North Pole Explorers, And The Making Of Modern Media, Hartman - B

                       "By the end of the nineteenth century,  the North Pole had replaced the Northwest Passage as the Holy Grail of Arctic exploring." The field had been abandoned  by governments, and was left to entrepreneurial explorers, often backed by newspapers. The NY Times backed Robert Peary, and the NY Herald, Frederick Cook.

                       The world of America's newspapers was about scooping the competition, and there was none better than the New York Herald. It was the premier paper in the US, if not the world, because its owners, Robert G. Bennett and his namesake son, were willing to spend any amount for a story and were the first to make extensive use of the telegraph and trans-Atlantic cable. They beat their competition on Custer's Last Stand by four days. The Herald sent James Stanley to Africa to find Dr. Livingstone, and began backing Arctic exploration in the 1870s. In September of 1909 when Dr. Frederick Cook wired from the Shetlands his claim of North Pole achievement, he did so with a 2,000 word article for the Herald. A week later, the Times received a telegram about reaching the Pole from Navy Capt. Robert Peary who was in Labrador.

                      Cook was the more accomplished and experienced of the two. He had been the physician on a Belgian expedition that wintered in Antarctica. Peary's efforts in the north of Greenland and on the ice had cost him most of toes. Peary, though, was well connected and the Peary Arctic Club built him an icebreaker that helped him achieve a farthest north in 1906. The following summer, Cook sailed north. Peary was delayed until 1908. An important member of Peary's Club had died and he looked all over New York for alternative funding. The Times paid for exclusive reporting rights.

                     As Cook did not return to civilization with any of the instruments he took north, nor any documentation, his claim was met with skepticism. He told the world he would provide his proof in the book he intended to write. Among those who stated he did not believe Cook was Peary. Thus began an unending controversy. And as it turned out, Peary had no compelling proof either.  As the bickering and mudslinging wore on, public opinion leaned toward Cook. The National Geographic Society conducted a perfunctory review of Peary's records and awarded him its Gold Medal. The University of Copenhagen rejected Cook's purported proofs out of hand. For all intents and purposes, Cook was an international pariah. The US Congress reviewed the work of the NGS on Peary and concluded it was "perfunctory and hasty," and that its examiners were "prejudiced in his favor." Peary's claims were now as suspect as Cook's. Two decades later, Roald Amundsen, conqueror of the South Pole, flew over the North Pole in a plane and most experts agree he was the first to 90 north. In the end, the conclusion has become that Cook never really tried, and Peary did not get all that close to the Pole.