In a time where every other article seems to be "fake news", it's hard to imagine that the press has ever been anything other than useless. However, the history of the press is deeply intertwined with American history and has played an important role in many developments that have affects that we still feel today.
The concept of the free press was first established back in 1735, when the publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, Peter Zenger, was arrested for the content of his newspaper that was deemed as libel about the British government. He won the court case, as it was voted that even if a statement was negative, it did not count as libel if it was true.
During the 1800s, the press grew to new heights as more and more people began to consume content of more opinionated news. The papers' ability to reach out to the everyday person allowed the industry to grow and eventually become a mass medium. This was soon impacted by the civil war, in which advances such as photography added a new dimension to the ability of newspapers to inform the people. Furthermore, with the telegraph at hand, news was able to be delivered in a timely manner so that newspapers were printing the most recent news. While the telegraphs were unreliable, their flaws were why the first reporters wrote with an inverted pyramid in which the most important information was at the beginning. This is also why even today, reporters do so in their writing, a trend that has passed through the centuries.
The importance of the news did not die down, and during the Gilded age, publishers such as William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer gave rise to yellow journalism as named after "The Yellow Kid", a comic published by Pulitzer. In this type of journalism, it was common to sensationalize and exaggerate the news so that more people would read it. This yellow journalism is often credited as a factor for the start of the Spanish American war, as yellow journalism played about the animosity between the two nations as well as the explosion of the Maine in Cuba. While journalism was used to twist the facts, a different side of the news began to appear. Named "muckrakers" by President Theodore Roosevelt, the newspaper began to bring legitimate issues to light. Writers such as Ida Tarbell and Lincoln Steffens were able to take down corrupt systems such as the trust system and boss systems within the economy and political sphere. In doing so, they showed how the press was to be used as a means of showing the people the truth as well as ensure justice.
This was not only isolated to the Gilded Age as modern examples can still be seen. One of the best examples is the Watergate Scandal, in which two reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, were able to uncover the truth about corruption in the White House.
Despite all of this, the news is quickly losing credibility, and it leaves many to wonder how it is that journalism has strayed so far from the original goal of informing the people and making the world a better place.
Source : https://www.thoughtco.com/here-is-a-brief-history-of-print-journalism-in-america-2073730
I agree in that news has always been important in determining the fate of the American people. News, fake or not, is influenced by a variety of factors, including but not limited to the government, money, or ethics for much of American history. For example, the Alien and Sedition Acts during John Adam's presidency severely criminalized and limited the American press, thereby influencing American's opinions on his leadership. Later on, Woodrow Wilson would use the Espionage and Sedition Acts to curtail criticism of the war effort under the pretense of protecting national interests and patriotism. Today, Donald Trump's tweets on fake news creates divisions between Americans over political opinion and civil rights.
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I also agree that both the "muckrakers" and "yellow journalist" are traditional versions of giving out news, but given the current standing of our news, we have to give our thanks to them. Muckrakers usually refers to people who wrote about the "muck" or dirty deeds of industries which now lead to the modern investigative journalism. And it is slightly ironic since they are eventually popping up industries themselves, producing news that makes them very influential.
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ReplyDeleteI appreciated how in this post there was discussion of multiple historical events that we have covered either recently or more towards the beginning of the year. I especially liked the reminder of the early Peter Zenger affair and how it connects to the press evolving over other time periods. Connecting your post to modern day, I took it upon myself to do some research on current day yellow journalism. On an article I found, the examples discussed I believe also show what is considered to be important to report. For example, many of these cases regard celebrities. Seeing the evolution on what is considered to be important to report in the first place is quite interesting in itself.
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I agree that the press started out with the right intentions and over time has become more interested in grasping more readers. Part of this is due to the bias of that specific group or organization which leads them to twist the truth. The press often times has the power to manipulate the general opinion over a certain issue. Other times, the press seeks to gain attention and have a louder voice over an issue. Because of this, many members of the press have abused this power which is why today many articles contain falsified and untrue information. Today, this is evident in all sorts of celebrity news gossip where information is often exaggerated or simply untrue. For example, tmz.com, has been known to release false death news on certain celebrities just to gain a few extra views.
ReplyDeleteSource: https://www.elitedaily.com/entertainment/10-biggest-tmz-false-reports
Interesting post! I was surprised that the press had such an intricate relationship with social and political events, especially yellow journalism in America. I found an article that connects your post to modern day. More specifically, it details how journalism correlates with a nation's "economics (because of the growth of large retailers in major cities), demographics (because of the shifts of population from farms to cities and then to suburbs), and politics (because early on political parties controlled newspaper)."
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I agree, the press is very much "the people's" tool, and helps bring many prominent social issues to light. I think the change in our press and what they cover has to do how society and America has changed since that century. Many articles and things the press cover today still have importance, such a world events, shootings, terrorism, and more. Yes, while news is expanding from political events to pop-culture and more superfluous news, it all comes from the idea of "Freedom of Press". Like Yellow Journalism, which was made interesting and dramatized so people would read about it and form opinions,I believe much of today's news is also moved in that direction (but perhaps more exaggerated than in that century). As times and society changes, I believe the press will too.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting article to read would be: https://muckrack.com/daily/2015/07/07/is-the-digital-in-digital-media-superfluous/
I find the difference between yellow journalism and muckrakers very interesting. While muckraking journalist exposed political corruption and industrial monopolies, yellow journalists used sensationalism and exaggeration to sway public opinion. Yellow journalism was used many times to make the public have a certain opinion on international events, such as the example you provided about the explosion of the Maine in Cuba. Both forms of journalism are types of narrative journalism, but yellow journalism is much more biased and one sided. As the press and the media continue to evolve, it unfortunately seems like the popularity of yellow journalism is increasing, while the number of muckraking articles is decreasing.
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