Comm455/History of Journalism

Christopher Columbus was not the first explorer to discover North America. Let’s get that important tidbit of information out of the way. There is a lot of debate surrounding the issue of who “discovered” America; and it is a argument to have another day. There is something, however, that can and will be explored today and that is […]

In 2012, people were excited about a new voice coming to cable TV – Melissa Harris-Perry. The MHP intrigue lies in the fact that she’s more than a personality. She wasn’t groomed for TV, but for academia teaching at top Universities like Princeton,University of Chicago, Tulane and most recently, Wake Forest.A tenured professor, and African-American host, […]

With the release of the new show American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson, details from the real-life case have been circulating through various news sources. When it came to the trial that began in 1994, Linda Deutsch, a reporter for the Associated Press, had one of the best seats in the house. Deutsch […]

On March 6th 2016,  Former First Lady Nancy Reagan passed away. Here is what was on the cover major newspapers the next day. Monday March 7th, 2016 Looking at top of each front page, called “above the fold” we can see the majority have a picture and a story about the passing of the first […]

As journalism began to increase in popularity as printing presses came about, many of the stories were focused on crime or war stories. Though some of these stories had political aspects to them, nothing had quite as much focus on politics as the Acta Senatus had centuries before this development. The Acta Senatus was Julius Caesar‘s […]

During the time of the Late Tang dynasty, Feng Tao, the prime minister, ordered the block printing of the Five Classics. From then on, important public works within China were block printed for distribution to the elite. Bi Sheng would later invent the movable type, which would lead to a revolution in printing. According to The Invention […]

“Social media, especially how I used it, isn’t real. It’s contrived images and edited clips ranked against each other. It’s a system based on social approval, likes, validation in views, and success in followers. It’s perfectly orchestrated self absorbed judgment.” –Essena O’Neill Could you imagine only being nineteen years old with over half a million […]

Nellie Bly was an American journalist known best for writing an in depth expose on abuses taking place in an asylum. While writing this piece, Bly went undercover as a resident to better understand the inner workings of her subject. Her consummate approach to storytelling earned her a name among the ranks of famous muckrakers […]

In November of 2015, Rolling Stone published a feature about a  gang rape that allegedly occurred at a frat party at University of Virginia. Rolling Stone’s Campus Rape Story was one of the most cautionary tales of confirmation bias in journalism. Journalism website, Poynter, comments that,”It’s also an example of how to not to behave […]

   The Penny Press was published in 1833 by Benjamin H. Day, when he launched his first successful penny newspaper, called the New York Sun. Penny papers were more affordable for poor families and individuals, whereas the cost for other newspapers was 6 cents and could only be afforded by the higher class. For this reason, the […]

Just in time for Super Tuesday, Marco Rubio displayed a different side of Rubio on Thursday night on the Republican GOP debate. Rubio, who had been known particularly as the little boy with big dreams in the Republican race for the presidential nomination showed a new face Thursday night, as he hit Donald Trump repeatedly […]

(The Gutenberg Parenthesis) – its an idea that everything after Gutenberg and the printing press was an interruption to the ‘original’ form of communication, word-of-mouth. In Megan Garber’s blog post ‘ The Gutenberg Parenthesis: Thomas Pettitt on parallels between the pre-print era and our own Internet age’ she quotes Thomas Pettitt, a professor at the […]