The ethnic press must be discussed somewhat independently from other American newspapers. Many ethnicities have a unique newspaper encompassing their cultures and communities. The Jewish community is no exception to this. The first Hebrew and Yiddish newspaper appeared in America in 1871, and there are still newspapers specific to the Jewish community today. The arguably […]
Archive for December, 2009
In Schudson’s, Discovering the News chapter 1, he goes into great depth about the penny press and how it transformed journalism from 1830 and on. He describes the 1830’s as a revolution in journalism; one that “led to a triumph of ‘news’ over the editorial and ‘facts’ over opinion.” Before 1830, party press and commercial […]
Objectivity, a mainstay to modern journalism, was not always present in early American newspapers — nor was it expected. “Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers” considers objectivity’s role in American newspapers from the early days of the Penny Press to the 1970’s. Author Michael Schudson‘s introduction lays the groundwork for what will […]
Not until the 1890s were reporters truly regarded as necessities to the newspaper world. Regardless of popular belief it was not the Civil War that set this new practice into motion. Journalism was already heading in a new direction, and it was the papers of New York that would ultimately take it there. The drama […]
Teddy Roosevelt: the man who coined the “muckraker”
Posted by: Alex Howard | December 2, 2009 | 3 Comments |When people think of the term, “muckraker,” what comes to mind are some of the people that changed the history of the world forever. Some of those people include Nellie Bly, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Upton Sinclair, and plenty of others. According to the dictionary, a muckraker is someone who seeks to expose corruption […]
Sensationalism of the 20th century and beyond
Posted by: samsnider | December 2, 2009 | No Comment |During a recent class discussion, I addressed a classroom full of peers concerning an important element of Mitchell Stephens book “A History of News.” The chapter revolved around the intricate question of whether or not news becomes better with better technologies–and if not then what exactly are we losing. Essentially, Stephens argues that from the mid twentieth century […]