Charles M. Palmer

Charles M. Palmer (October 3, 1856 – December 10, 1949) was a Midwest newspaper broker who assembled much of the William Randolph Hearst media empire and an organizer of the Associated Press.

Palmer was born in a log cabin in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He initially worked at the La Crosse Chronicle and the La Crosse Republican and Leader.

Palmer moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he received $15/week and 25 percent commission on advertising at the Minneapolis Miller. Within two years, he saved enough for a $5,000 down-payment on buying the publication. He would claim that he was part owner of all the newspapers in Minneapolis and reportedly boasted or bragged that he had invested $4,000 in the Minneapolis Journal and sold it for $120,000 in 1901.

In 1896, he bid $25,000 for The New York Times because he said that he felt that the paper was in "bad shape". Adolph S. Ochs met the asking price of $50,000.

In 1903, he bought what would become the St. Joseph News-Press and later the St. Joseph Gazette. The News-Press & Gazette Company would be his main newspaper until the end of his life.

He died in Saranac Lake, New York and he had no children.