Comm455/History of Journalism

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Martin Luther was a prominent and significant figure of the Protestant Reformation. After feeling a sense of cynicism and hypocrisy within the church he held dear, he began questioning the teachings of the church and later fought to change them.

While historic documentaries usually prove to bore me, after watching the documentary on Luther I found myself to be moved by many points made in the film. The fact that he was able to tackle a large institution, spread his message so vastly, and gain an immense amount of followers are all things that I found to be not only moving but inspiring.

I realized that all of the instances that I found moving about Luther’s movement related to one item: the printing press.

thelibrary.org

Now maybe it’s because I am a journalism major and I hold the idea of the printing press dear to my heart, but I was truly in awe of the power that the printing press held in Luther’s journey.

Without the printing press, Luther would have just been a voice among a crowd. Luther used the press to his advantage to not only raise his voice but spread his message. And boy did it spread.

The documentary described the spreading of his writings as “unleashing a hurricane.” By having his ideas printed, they could travel and not be stopped. Looking at how his ideas were acclaimed and spread throughout the population, it lead Luther to be called the “first propagandist” by some scholars.

“He discovered the power of the press in ways that no one else had used it up to that point: everything from woodcuts being used in a polemical way, ditties and rhymes. He mastered this new medium; he used it to spread and turn what would have been a local affair into an international movement.” – PBS

Combining Luther’s ideas with the printing press, the push back from the church soon became useless. Luther’s vision and ideas continue to live on and inspire others today, especially because we have them recorded. Thanks again, printing press!

Plus, as we briefly discussed in class, you can kill a person, but you can’t kill an idea.

On Feb. 2, 2016, me and my classmates spent the entire class watching the PBS film “Martin Luther” narrated by none other than Liam Neeson. What was great about the film in particular was the sheer amount of background information on the not so humble beginnings of Martin Luther.

Previous to watching the film, my knowledge on this iconic person was limited to his works such as the 95 Thesis and his distaste for the practice of selling indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church. After watching the film in its entirety, I have a profound respect for the trials and troubles that Martin Luther endured throughout his life.

One of the first things that caught my attention in the film was how strict and fierce Martin Luther’s parents were on him. His father, Hans Luther, was a coppersmith and wanted his son to become a lawyer. Martin Luther offers an example of punishment he faced for disobedience:

” For the sake of stealing a nut, my mother once beat me until the blood flowed.”

http://iceage.wikia.com/wiki/File:Scrat_(character_model).jpg

Another mystery about Martin Luther that the film explained was on his epiphany that led him to devote his life completely to God. At the age of 23, Martin Luther was returning to Erfurt after visiting his family when he was caught in a nasty thunderstorm. Nobody knows exactly what happened to Martin Luther on that faithful night, but his words offer a glimpse into his situation:

” Suddenly surrounded by the terror and agony of death, I felt constrained to vow myself to God.”

What surprised me the most about the film was how quickly Martin Luther’s opinion on the people who took his 95 Thesis to heart and began to lash out in violence once his work spread through the lands like wildfire. The first sparks of revolution started in Wittenberg, Germany where monks and nuns alike began to leave the order while priests abandoned their sacred vows to get married. Nothing entails his thoughts on the peasantry better than his remorseless prose directed at them:

” One has to be hard with them and see that under the threat of the sword, they comply with the law just as you chain up wild beasts.”

Overall the film provided an in-depth look at the life of Martin Luther and shed much light into the gaps of his early and later life. Although he did not foresee how his works would shake the very foundation of the Roman Catholic Church and galvanize the people to act, some would argue that the future would have been very different if it had not happened.

http://www.wnd.com/2015/10/martin-luther-warned-about-appeasing-islam-500-years-ago/

In 1455 Johannes Gutenberg created what may be the greatest invention in the history of journalism. In 1517, a young man named Martin Luther would challenge Gutenberg for the position as the most influential German in the history of journalism when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg.

At the time, nailing messages to the door of the church was a common way to start discussion in Luther’s time. One thing that had changed recently was the amount of people who would be able to read and understand what Luther was saying.

Up until Gutenberg invented movable type, printing was an arduous and incredibly expensive process, making books available to only the elite members of society. After Gutenberg perfected his invention, literacy rates among the populous soared and created a new audience for Luther’s arguments to be heard.

With this new larger audience and with the ease of printing increasing, what would have been a message for the church to debate internally quickly turns into a countrywide discussion. For Luther, this naturally came as a shock, but instead of hiding from his highly controversial and provocative ideas about the church, he stood by and even expanded on them.

Luther’s message was simple. He argued that the corruption of the Catholic church was causing millions of people to lose salvation or place false hopes on indulgences sold by the church. As the leading global authority at the time, the church naturally was outraged with Luther, and Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther when he refused to recant.

Even though his life was now literally in danger as he could be arrested thanks to the excommunication, Luther still refused to recant, and was eventually summoned to the Diet of Worms thanks to the help of Germany’s leader at the time, Frederick the Wise. Frederick was able to set up this meeting to hold a vote on whether Luther was a heretic.

Frederick was certainly wise enough to realize this young monk in his territory was weakening the position of the church he had to pay royalties to so regularly, so he took advantage of the situation and prevented the vote from being unanimous as to keep Luther alive. Ultimately Luther would survive the vote at Worms, and continue his attacks on the papacy, the church, and even Jews in his later years. 

Overall Luther had two main contributions that still impact the world and journalism today.
The first was his posting of the 95 theses, which helped shape journalism as a discussion within the community rather than a discussion amongst elites. The second, his translation of the bible into German, again reinforced the importance of citizens learning for themselves, and advocated for the spread of knowledge and discussion within the community.

Though his first contribution may have been accidental, his second contribution was completely deliberate and arguably more meaningful. Whatever the case may be, Martin Luther was certainly one of Germany’s greatest contributions towards the journalism we know today.

Since Saturday Night Live is planned days in advance, they typical do not have enough time to report on something that happened a few hours before broadcast. This was the rare exception. The flub made during the Republican debate on ABC happened about 4 hours before Weekend Update aired live.

In the 1970’s when SNL first started broadcasting this bit about the debate would probably never would have happened. Writers and producers for SNL would not have had easy access to this footage from a rival network, let alone know what was so funny. In today’s age, people are instantly notified when something happens. Plus, it was easy for NBC to acquire the ABC footage because they could easily download it off of a DVR or online video. NBC was able to use the footage because they were actually reporting about it in a journalistic sense, and in a parody sense, both of which would qualify for fair use.

Is President Obama‘s Executive Order on gun control infringing on American’s second amendment right? The Second Amendment of the United State’s Constitution states,

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Recently, President Obama  put out an executive order to reduce gun violence and make communities safer. The order requires for there to be a background check conducted if you buy a gun at a gun show, store, or from the Internet along with the procedures to gain a gun license. The idea is very sound as guns have been put into the hands of unstable people, but the question remains how can President Obama and his team go about this without infringing on American’s second amendment.

In 2015, The Washington Post published an article which showed that gun sales increased once President Obama was elected into office. Within the article, The Washington Post added a graph published by the National Shooting Sports foundation highlighting those increases. The graph showed that after President Obama’s first election, there was a spike in sales of firearms and ammunition but there was an even larger spike after his second election.

Estimated Sales of Firearms and Ammunition Credit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/11/barack-obama-may-have-been-at-least-a-9-billion-boon-to-the-gun-industry-so-far/

After President Obama announced his executive order on gun control, CNN took a poll to see if the people approved or opposed this order. The results were as followed: 67% favored, 32% opposed, and 2% no opinion. Democratic Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supported President Obama’s executive order as they saw it as a way to protect the American communities. However, Republican candidates Marco Rubio, Jed Bush, Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson disapproved of the President’s executive order questioning if it violates American’s second amendment rights. The topic of gun control could be the deciding factor in the upcoming 2016 Presidential Election, so follow the stories closely.

Below are remarks made by President Obama about the gun violence he has witnessed during his presidency and his executive order to reduce gun violence and make communities safer. 

Martin Luther was a German, former monk and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.  He rejected teachings and practices of the Late Medieval Catholic Church.

(biography.com)

In class, we watched a documentary on Luther.  Three things that stuck out to me were that he was is considered the first propagandist, his ideas were spread through the printing press and he was one of Europe’s best selling authors.

It stuck out to me how he is considered the first propagandist.  This propaganda helped spread the printing press, which is a big event in time to remember because our class is focused on the history of journalism.

Luther changed Christianity when he began the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century Europe by creating his 95 Thesis and nailing it to a church door.  He didn’t agree with the fact that freedom from God’s punishment for sin could be purchased with money. His thesis discusses this misguided power and his thoughts.

He stood up for what he believed it and got it published for the world to see. That little wave he made carried on to many people, making them question Christianity themselves.  This gained him many followers and believers in the Protestant traditions. Luther and the printing press caused new ideas and thoughts that were made available to the public in ways that had never been seen before the sixteenth century.

(perkinssiversreformationmuseum.blogspot.com)

Luther would not have been able to change the world without the help of the printing press. The printing press was the like the internet during this time period.  It was their fastest way of spreading important information and is the base of print journalism today.

http://www.biography.com/people/martin-luther-9389283

Martin Luther was the great mind behind the start of the protestant reformation, even if he did not want the position. Luther’s time in the church (that being the Catholic church) was wrought with depression, abuse, and constant questioning of the church’s motives that all contributed to his separation from and attack against the Catholic church.

http://www.nndb.com/people/180/000092901/

The hypocrisy of the Catholic church during the 1500s is a main factor in Luther’s reason for speaking out against the church. Pope Leo X was a corrupt man that used the church money to feast and do everything that was against the beliefs of the Catholic Church. The most widespread and effective corruption of Pope Leo was the use of indulgences, which allowed people to buy their way into heaven. This was a large revenue maker for the church and it was a big trigger in the writing of Luther’s 95 Theses. The Theses were written and nailed to a church door by Luther and they explained in detail the transgressions of the Catholic church.

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi756.htm

Luther’s 95 Theses completely changed the way that Europe viewed the Catholic church, and it is all due to the Gutenberg printing press. While Gutenberg’s press was not the first printing press invented it did contain movable type. That movable type was the key to quick printing that allowed for the 95 Theses to be spread across Europe so quickly that the Catholic church could not stop it. Everyone knew who Luther was and they read all of his works (as he produced them), which created a widespread movement against the church. This movement soon moved toward a social revolution that Luther was against.

http://www.museeprotestant.org/en/notice/martin-luther-his-written-works/

It is somewhat surprising that Martin Luther was against the social revolution that followed his public separation from the church. People, after reading Luther’s Theses and other works, ransacked churches and went to massacre the clergy. Luther was outright and harsh with his words against the rebelling people calling them to be righteous and leave the senseless fighting alone. Luther’s move against the church, verbally attacking the Catholic church for its hypocrisy, led to a larger movement across Europe that is known as The Reformation. 

photo via @thesenanschlag

Let’s face it, the average person doesn’t care about another history figure from the time of Jesus. Peter the first might as well be Peter Pan. It’s an unfortunate reality, but understandable when we’re inundated with information. Overwhelmed or not, there is one man that’s bound to show up in trivia that you need to know and that is Martin Luther. Luther was a German monk turned radical icon who spoke out against the Catholic church. A total rebel for his time, these are the tidbits you should know to be in the know aka TRIVIA READY!

1. He was a devoted monk, going to extreme measures to prove his devotion.
2. Wrote the 95 Theses which questioned the catholic church. He nailed it to a church door and it went viral. The 95 Theses are said to be the catalyst to the Protestant Reformation and was aided by the printing press. He didn’t expect it to receive as much attention as it did, but it did and its popularity wasn’t something he could control.
3. He was given the choice to recant or be arrested by the heads of the Holy Roman Empire at a meeting known as the ‘Diet of Worms‘. Worms for the name of the German city. He chose the later and was labelled a heretic in the ‘Edict of Worms‘
4. His actions are in direct relation to the revolt that lead to monks, priests, and nuns abandoning the church. The first steps of the reformation, Luther didn’t realize how radical his ideas were and spoke out against the revolutionaries.
5. Translated the Bible making it accessible to the average person.

These are the top five facts I found interesting about Martin Luther, but there are a lot more, explored thoroughly in the PBS documentary ‘Martin Luther’. A long, but solid historical documentary it’s worth the time if you’re interested in learning about history and how it feeds into the way we communicate today. I didn’t even get into the printing press and how that was one of the main catalysts of the revolution…thats for another post. 🙂

-J.

In my journalism class, we watched a documentary on Martin Luther, which was cool. It’s crazy how when you are in middle school, you don’t really pay attention to all of the historical figures that we learn about in history class, but when we watch a documentary on a specific person, it stays with you- at least for me it does. I remember learning about the 95 thesis in high school and about Martin Luther, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it nor did I understand why he was important or why the 95 thesis was important. After watching this video, the light bulb finally went off (better late than never).

Martin Luther was a very religious person who wanted to please his father. I think the things that struck me the most had to do with his religious journey and his journey with finding who he was in the eyes of God. Luther was the type of person who believed he could never please God and that everything he was doing was never enough. It wasn’t until he was appointed as a teacher for religious students that he really understood how to be saved. His devotion to God and being saved was amazing and touching to watch.

One of the things that was mentioned in the documentary was that during Black death, Luther and his family believed it to be a punishment from God for their sins. Its weird because I am person of Faith and I definitely don’t believe that. I don’t think a bad thing can come from a merciful God. Another shocking think was in learning about the Roman catholic church. Learning that they were greedy and interested in making new ways to make a profit was shocking because this was coming from a church. I had the same reaction that Luther had when he found out: shocked and disgusted.

Luther also became a monk. He decided to leave school and become a monk, which I thought was a very devotional act. His life as a monk was miserable, and it seemed to me that he was trying to punish himself and live his life miserably; A life full of torture and sadness.

Luther’s journey was rough, but in the end, he accomplished a lot and changed a lot of minds and I would say that he found some of the answers he was looking for.

Inspiring instead of Crying

The Yazidis are a very small distinctive ancient, cultural, religious minority living in Sinjar, Iraq. Recently however they are facing an ethnic cleansing and the worst genocide in our modern day world. The Yazidis are facing an accusation that they are devil worshippers by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) who are targeting its believers. They consider the Yazidis nonbelievers because they do not practice Islam. Among one of the most problematic aspects of the ideology of ISIL is that it claims justification for enslaving Yazidi women.

Nadia Murad Basee Taha is a Yazidi rights activist who was kidnapped and held by ISIL in Aug. of 2014. The 21 year old was a student living in Sinjar, Northern Iraq when she was taken as a slave among thousands of others and sold into sexual slavery. Having recently escaped captivity she has proceeded in making herself known telling world leaders and everyone of the horrors of the atrocities committed by ISIL. To say she is brave is an understatement as she continues to speak out for her ethnic and religious minority, which have violated and abused in the most inhumane and unspoken of ways in the 21^st century.

On 26 Dec. 2015 Ms. Murad visited Egypt and was received by President Abdel Fattah El Sisi at his presidential palace. She was also able to give a lecture to the students at Cairo University. Among the most haunting lines during her lecture where she described ISIL militants she said that they:

“Used to force captives to pray and then rape us.”

http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/world/article/jihadists-holding-over-3000-yazidis-hostage

On Dec. 17th 2015 she delivered her personal story at the Security Council of Maintenance of International peace and security. Representing one of the many thousand of ISIL victims Ms. Murad was able to give her personal perspective on the trafficking of peoples in situations of conflict.

Her appearance in the media shades light not only on herself as a victim, but also on her people who are suffering from a horrific genocide. Ms. Murad was also able to shade light on women who are suffering in war zones and all humans suffering from this unheard of barbarity of such a terrorist organization and its ideology.

Ms. Murad’s story represents the catastrophic suffering of many living in Syria and in Iraq. This story is an iconic representation of the extreme human suffering which is sometimes lost in the hundreds of headlines we see every single day. It is in no doubt a big story but it should be talked about and remembered in the media.

Change is hard in any period and time. It means a different thing to each person. Many societies resist change because of the unknown tomorrow; many see it as a glimpse of light in the darkness of their lives, while many others see it as a threat to the stability of the only world they know, and others fear to lose the power they hold. History has taught us that scores of leaders stood in the way of change, and did all they could to prevent anyone or any idea from shaking the thrones they once thought could never be moved. This still exists today as we are witnessing the outcome of the so-called Arab Spring.

German monk Martin Luther was one of the pioneers in challenging the system. He was an activist of his time, who fought with all his might armed with his sharp unbending pencil. His story is a great example of how the idea of change had been received in the middle ages, and how that has not changed much even after many centuries have passed. He wrote 95 Theses in which he attacked the Catholic Church, the most powerful authority of the day, in a way it had never before encountered. His insolence and effrontery caused the pope’s fury. The latter decided to excommunicate Luther. However the idea was spreading like wildfire and there was no way to contain the damages.

Although Luther’s idea of reforming the Catholic Church goes back to the 16th century, its very essence makes him a “whistle-blower” of his era, an activist and a strong opposition leader that cannot be silenced despite potential consequences. Some scholars in the documentary The Reluctant Revolutionary said Luther was calling for the democratization of religion. And yet, if there had been no printing press at the time, Luther’s ideas would not have traveled throughout Europe and made him the most popular man in the continent in merely a month. Without people’s interest, the printing, and distribution of his writings, his pamphlet and later on his translated bible, none of his goals would have been achieved.

After exposing the Church, he refused to reject what he had written against Rome’s un-Catholic practices, and how it used to amass wealth at the expense of the faithful and the religion he had committed his life to serve. He said after a meeting where his fate was being decided, “here I stand and I can do no other”.  This statement of his, one of the scholars featured in the documentary said, “launched a new era where the ordinary man can defy authority. Or as Professor Klein said, “it launched the liberty of conscience”.

But Luther is not the leader of change we might think of today. Even if he was the head of the revolution at the heart of the Catholic Church, he refused the effect his ideas had on peasants and common people who were aspiring to get more out of this moment. Not only did he stand in the way of the social demands of the grassroots, but he wrote a prose to counter their calls and incited for their brutal killing. His writing this time inspired those in power to order the carnage. According to the documentary, 100K of the rebelling people were killed. Today we still see how some  governments’ respond to social justice demands of the people.The unfortunate and yet best example is Syria. It is living an ongoing brutal civil war, with tens of thousands killed and millions displaced, at the mercy of government forces or terrorist who have found a safe haven amid the chaos.

Luther might have been the first known propagandist, as one expert mentioned in the film, a man who looked the Catholic Church in the eye and said all that was wrong with it, a man who brought Protestantism to light; however he was also a man who believed in a divided society that denies the basic human needs of the less fortunate, and had no religious tolerance towards those who did not share his faith, primarily Jews.

Picture source.

In 1455, Johannes Gutenberg created something that changed his world forever and helped shape the society we live in today. Though many may already know this creation was the Gutenberg Bible and that his invention was movable type for printing presses, ask those same individuals to name another fact about Gutenberg’s life and they will likely be at a loss. This is because even though he may arguably be one of the most important individuals in history, history has forgotten nearly every other aspect of his life.

For those who do not understand the importance of Gutenberg, simply look at the effect he had on his own time period. Before Gutenberg perfected movable type printing was a much more arduous process that made the cost of the papers printed affordable only to the upper classes. Books were seen as a sign of wealth and since they could not afford them the majority of the people in his time were illiterate.

Movable type solved this problem and allowed publishers to increase output exponentially. This increase in literacy created more authors and more informed and serious discussion of societal issues. A perfect example of this can be seen in the example of Martin Luther starting the Reformation with his 95 theses.

Not only did the printing press help distribute his work to the masses, but the increase in literacy at the time meant that not only did his fellow monks and clergymen receive his message, but so did the common people. A century earlier with a less educated and less literate populace, Martin Luther likely would have been crushed by the power and control the church had at that time.

Though his contribution to the world and journalism more specifically has been easy to explain, the rest of Gutenberg’s life is almost entirely speculation. As the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin explains about Gutenberg, “We do not know if he was married or had children.

Even the famous engraved portraits of Gutenberg were made long after his death and are based on the artist’s imagination, not Gutenberg’s actual appearance.”

The few facts we do know about Gutenberg are that he was born in and passed away in Mainz, Germany and that he was a metal worker before creating his printing press. WE also know that he likely retired early and was financially supported by the Archbishop of Mainz until his death in 1468.

Though we may have little historical evidence about Gutenberg’s life outside of his greatest achievement, we will at least always remember his name as a man who changed the world forever.

Notes:

http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/johann/

Syllabus timeline