It is almost like there is an “Old Boy Network” in the news agencies. Especially on the East Coast. But Walter Annenberg had a lot of “Yellow Kids” on his payroll. And some of them are still around, and still writing about Sonny, and still telling negative stories about Sonny, on behalf of the Walter Annenbergs. And remember that Walter Annenberg had Sonny Liston on his BlackList. The best thing Walter Annenberg, the owner of Philadelphia Inquirer ever said about Sonny, was that “He was a bum. I didn’t want to give him publicity”. – AMAZON, Beast: The Deconstruction of Charles Sonny Liston. While he ran his publishing empire as a business, Annenberg was not afraid to use it for his own agenda. The Philadelphia Inquirer was influential in ridding Philadelphia of its corrupt city government in 1949. It also attacked Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, when most other publications feared McCarthy. The Enquirer campaigned for the Marshall Plan after World War II.

Annenberg also made many enemies: activist Ralph Nader, actress Zsa Zsa Gabor, boxer Sonny Liston, and many politicians became “non-existent” in his newspapers. Their names were never mentioned, and they were even air-brushed out of group photographs.[2] In 1966, Annenberg used the pages of The Inquirer to cast doubt on the candidacy of Democrat Milton Shapp in the election for governor of Pennsylvania. Shapp was highly critical of the proposed merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad with the New York Central and was pushing the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission to prevent it. Annenberg, a significant shareholder of the Pennsylvania Railroad, wanted to see the merger go through. Unfavorable press coverage of Shapp, including presenting false charges of a stay in a mental asylum and Shapp’s subsequent denial, contributed to his election defeat by Raymond P. Shaffer.[2]