William V. McKean ran the Public Ledger, one of Philadelphia's most influential newspapers, for more than twenty-five years at the end of the nineteenth century. He used as his guiding principles a system of journalistic ethics based on fairness and accuracy in reporting and a concern for the public good. The ideas behind the maxims he penned for his editors and reporters outlasted both the Ledger and its editor and still apply to the news business.

William Vincent McKean was born in Philadelphia on 15 October 1820, the son of a Scots-Irish couple, William and Helen McKean. Except for a few years in Washington, Philadelphia was his lifelong home. He had little formal education: his mother taught him to read, and he had periods of study at local private schools until he was thirteen; after that, he went to work and attended night school. In 1836, he was apprenticed to the...