Never Mind Why: Hearst’s Smear Campaign on Hemp Changes History
Posted by: markherbert | September 15, 2011 | No Comment |The going rate is 20 dollars a gram for marijuana in the Mid Atlantic United States. What if I told you that in the early 1900s you could have held several ounces of the plant for pennies? That’s right folks. It’s a pot blog. However without starting a referendum on who has the right to use it I plan to uncover an interesting fact about the newspapers of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s…They were made from hemp! Much paper was made with the fiber until the early 1900’s when William Randolph Hearst put his newspaper, The New York Journal, into the fray that has raged since then until this very day.
Hearst was a wealthy businessman fresh from his great success commercializing the San Francisco Examiner and poised to start a circulation war with Joseph Pulitzer in New York. That very circulation war is the spark from which emerged the practice and term “Yellow Journalism”. However the real story, that any educated stoner will be happy to tell you, is that in the midst of this struggle Hearst ran countless examples of the sensationalist style he became known for AGAINST hemp. The fiber had proven itself to be more durable and cheap to produce into paper than regular wood pulp and was fast gaining popularity with many stationers.
To understand Hearst’s rush to take down the plant, you must first know this. That in order to more cheaply produce his own paper, Hearst had made huge investments into the timber industry. With the rise of cannabis fibers he stood to lose all of what he had gained. In response William Randolph Hearst did what he did best.
He ran a smear campaign. And a damn good one too. According to the stereotypes of the day Hearst contended that the “Drug” (one of the first references to marijuana as a drug) was a dark tool used by “Negroes, Hispanics, and Entertainers” and that the plant forced them into a bloodcraze in which it would be perfectly normal for a black man to rape a white woman and kill her whole family without thinking twice. I ask you, does that sound like any kind of pot you’ve smoked?
Hearst’s domino had fallen into another and another and another, snowballing America’s drug war and dictating government policy even into the present day. Eventually the pressure got so high on the government from Hearst’s own readers writing in to protect them from this killer drug that the government was forced to criminalize the growing, and then the sale, and finally the simple possession of marijuana. That kind of achievement could not have ever been possible with credibility but in the age of WIlliam Randolph Hearst, it only took a whim and a typewriter to change whatever needed changing.
One of the most influential technological advances of the mid to late 19th century was the telegraph. The telegraph had the ability to drastically cut the travel time for news and other information.
Samuel F.B. Morse, the inventor of Morse code,
Samuel Morse's telegraph (Source: Wikipedia)
along with his assistant, Alfred Vail, created the first electrical telegraph. After several successful small scale tests in 1838, Morse was given $30,000 dollars for more work on his experimental system.
Finally, in 1844, Morse and Vail had reached their moment of truth. Their telegraph line was operational and their first public test was a message sent from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, Maryland. What was the all-important message? “WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT.” Coincidentally, the message was chosen by Annie Ellsworth, the daughter of the first Patent Commissioner, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth.
While the test was succesful, implementation of the machine took some time. It was not until almost 20 years later, in 1861, that the first telegraph line spanned transcontinentally.
Although it took some time, once the telegraph line was available, the Pony Express became obsolete. There was no longer a need for a horse, whose speed ultimately determined the spread of news. Messages traveled along electrical wires run from one station to another and the contact was instantaneous.
Before long, the Pony Express was phased out. There was simply no way for it to compete.
Tags: Alfred Vail, bpassmor, Brittany Passmore, Pony Express, Samuel Morse, technology, telegraph
Facebook Survival: Does “Anonymous” Have Teeth?
Posted by: markherbert | September 13, 2011 | No Comment |The Terrorists could black out cities. They could launch nuclear missiles in their silos! They could…shut down Facebook? In recent months Americans have been seeing this story develop on national news shows in the thirty to forty five second increments the major networks give to the short frill pieces that we all seem to care so little about. This Guy Fawkes Day, says one large group of hackers, it’s all going down.
The group “Anonymous” has vowed that this year on the 5th of November they will down the social networking giant Facebook. This particular date was chosen in honor of Guy Fawkes Day. Popularized in the hit movie and graphic novel V for Vendetta. This holiday, celebrated mainly in the UK, commemorates the efforts of Guy Fawkes, an English Catholic, who in 1605 tried and failed to blow up the British Parliament. Since then the date has always somewhat stood for a personal willingness to change what one sees wrong with society.
The reasons for this cyber attack are a suspicion by this group that Facebook is providing social and private information to the government. They are calling for mass cooperation from anyone who “just wants to protect the freedom of information,” in their endeavor. But can “Anonymous” really take down one of the largest websites in the world?
A few of Facebook’s practices do worry some internet security specialists. A 6 character password (their only requirement) is a “30 second job” according to Mandeep Khera, an internet security analyst for a large firm. Hacking has not been flatlining of late, as any Facebook user who has been hacked could tell you. And there is no shortage of them. There were 11,000 hacked accounts in 2008 alone.
Amidst such threats can Mark Zuckerberg keep us safe? No doubt Zuckerberg commands a veritable army of internet support staff as well as some of the largest servers in the Eastern Hemisphere. With a large organized association at his front door, however, Facebook’s openness to new members and its ergonomic interface could be its downfall. Regardless of the outcome, Facebooks over 750 million active users will all have cause to “Remember, remember, the 5th of November”
Tags: Anonymous, Facebook, History of Journalism, Mark Herbert, Security, Zuckerberg
Manager John Schiffner sees me coming from his perch in the dugout and makes sure to put on his hat. His hair is a little disheveled today, and wouldn’t look very good on camera.
Ten years ago this scenario would never have played out in the small town of Chatham, Massachusetts. Ten years ago the Cape Cod Baseball League, the nation’s pre-eminent collegiate summer baseball league, didn’t even broadcast their games on the radio.
These days, however, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr are being used to revolutionize the league’s game coverage, and bring the action, stories and personalities to a worldwide audience.
Where families and friends of players, along with scouts and representatives from Major League organizations, once had few options at their disposal to follow the top players and stories from the league, there is now a wide range of ways to experience the action on the field without ever setting foot inside the Massachusetts state line.
The challenge for young sports reporters then, now recruited by the league nearly as heavily as the young men on the diamond, is maintaining these new news networks, while staying up to date on their research, and continuing to fine-tune their craft.
It’s a challenge that Syracuse student and former Wareham Gatemen announcer Seth Bernstein has accepted, understanding that the business he’s entering has changed by leaps and bounds since he first aspired to enter the radio booth. “Social media has certainly made a broadcaster’s job a bit different,” says Bernstein. “It’s not just calling what you see in front of you anymore – you also have to keep your Facebook fans and Twitter followers up-to-speed during the game, as well.”
The trick now is to continue improving the league’s coverage, in an effort to bring more fans into the fold, and increase tourism and merchandise sales as much as possible.
Each team now employs the use of a single camera, normally located behind home plate, to stream live video of each home game. With the high number of new viewers coming in as a result, the league has considered asking each team to use two or more cameras to broadcast their games, which would narrow the field of broadcast applicants to those with greater technical abilities and personnel management skills, along with the ability to accurately and enthusiastically relay accounts of the action on the field to a now global audience.
How much that will thin the number of resumes the league receives has yet to be determined, but one thing is for certain: students who dream of a career “calling the game” must now be more prepared and technically savvy than ever before.
The Roman empire was one of the most powerful ancient civilizations of all time. They also created the earliest form of a newspaper called the Acta.
One might think this newspaper would be filled with great stories like gladiators or crime. Instead it was just a few short selections from the Senate each day.
The original Acta was called the Acta Senatus under emperor Augustus. The emperor did not let anyone see these. That was until his successor Tiberius came around and kept them in private libraries. Select people were allowed to view these writings.
Under Julius Caesar’s reign, the Acta Diurna was born. This daily gazette was posted outside in public places for anyone to see the proceedings in the Senate.
The Romans probably had no idea what this little thing would actually lead to. You could even argue that the Acta helped pave the way for me to be writing this post. Even if print journalism does die out, it has had a much longer tenure than the Acta did. At least progress is being made and who knows what will be next after online journalism gets old!
Few people could be considered visionaries of their time. Michael Stern Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, could be seen as one of these rare visionaries.
Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg (Source: blog.reprap.org)
In 1971, it was far fetched to imagine the progression of technology to its current levels. Yet, Michael Hart was able to see the continuous need for books and the demand for easily accessible content. Hart’s solution was the electronic book, or ebook, an electronic file that contained the text of an actual book.
Hart’s first self-assigned project as a student at the University of Illinois was to create a file that could be transmitted throughout the school’s network. He used the university’s computer network similarly to ARPANET, the origin for today’s Internet.
Tags: bpassmor, Brittany Passmore, ebooks, ereaders, Johann Gutenburg, michael hart, printing press, technology
In the late 1800’s, mostly cold hard facts were considered for news stories. At the turn of the century however, journalists were beginning to stray from objectivity. Finding the dirt of the story became more important than the where’s and they why’s.
The word muckraker was first coined by Theodore Roosevelt, who was president during this time. He derived the term from a 1678 publication called “Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan. Roosevelt referred to a character in the story that refused to look up from his muck-raking to receive a righteous crown.
“The Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; Who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.” – from “Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography“
Roosevelt used his new term to refer to investigative reporters that he had trouble with. He had issues in dealing with reporters that he felt were trying to find a negative spin to put on a story.
Okay. So why does this matter today? Does muckraking still exist?
I say yes. The television show/website TMZ is a prime example.
TMZ took a legitimate news story in the Casey Anthony Trial and found the muck in it. Instead of focusing on any of the facts of the trial, the criminal case or the evidence; TMZ reports Anthony’s beverage of choice once she’s acquitted. Muck.
Off with their heads! (OK, maybe just their pens)
Posted by: Ramy Zabarah | September 13, 2011 | No Comment |Few things are as passionate, dangerous or consequential as a population’s will to overthrow its government. Even today, people are exercising their rights to speak up against oppressors by way of assembly through mass media. After all, what could go wrong with a little power of the press?
A French guillotine, circa 1794
In fact, history has also shown us that a lot can go wrong if certain powers are put in the wrong hands.
The American Revolution saw the effects of crusading newspapers in the late 18th century. Inspired by their neighbors across the pond, the French soon followed suit with the hopes that they, too, could use press to promote their secession from the monarchy.
What the French chose to underestimate was the people’s determination to succeed in bringing down the Old Regime.
Tags: French Influences, French Revolution, King Louis XVI, Libelles, Ramy Zabarah
Due to various social, legal and stereotypical climates, women writers have historically written under pen names. Listed are some distinguished women writers who, for various reasons, wrote undercover or attempted to deceive their audience. Keep in the mind the question, why are women in the 21st century still writing under pseudonyms?
Credit: /www.ndsleuths.com
Harriet Adams wrote the Nancy Drew series, a few books in the Hardy Boys series, and some 200 books during her literary career.
It’s almost hard to believe The New York Times was founded as a penny paper in 1851. But then again, it’s not surprising. Of course a newspaper of such prestige was a part of the revolutionary penny press era. The penny press made significant contributions to the newspaper industry. While the penny press is known for its low cost, the true advantages of the penny press are best recognized when answering the question: why was the penny press important?
In the early 1800s most newspapers cost approximately six cents. While that may seem affordable in today’s economy, it wasn’t until the emergence of one cent newspapers that they became available to more than just upper class citizens for the first time. The more people who were able to read the news, the higher the demand for newspapers. As circulation increased, news became more important.
According to Jennifer Vance, a historian, “The heavy dependence on advertising as a major source of revenue was a main reason that the Penny Press was able to sell papers for a lower price than anyone else. Other papers relied heavily on subscriptions and daily sales. The price of paper and materials used to produce the newspapers also decreased making the production of the newspaper itself less expensive.”
This video further explores the evolution of the penny press, and the contributions it made to the newspaper industry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG1IjZqpV4kWhile the penny press is important for numerous reasons, essentially, it’s greatest contribution was in revolutionizing the way newspapers are produced (faster and cheaper), distributed (to people of all incomes) and funded (advertising).
Tags: Benjamin Day, Heather Blevins, History of Journalism, Journalism, newspapers, The Penny Press