Howey became a reporter for the Fort Dodge Messenger in 1902 and then worked for the Des Moines Daily Capital before joining Hearst's Chicago American.
As more people escaped via the theater cellar through the sewers, Howey reported his scoop, and the story, one of the biggest in Chicago's history, established his reputation for speed, resourcefulness, and skillful writing.
Howey was the prototype for Walter Burns, the scheming, ruthless managing editor, in Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's 1928 play The Front Page.
Howey had a glass eye that some attributed to the circulation wars and others to his drunkenly passing out and impaling himself on a copy spike.
[2][3] In 1931, Howey patented an automatic photoelectric engraving process,[4] and he developed the sound photo system of transmitting photographs by wire.