Comm455/History of Journalism

By Mark Herbert Our prayers go out to the family of Steve Jobs who tragically passed away yesterday. The legacy he left was both huge and sterling. Apple computers lead the way in terms of new interface and new interaction with our technology. Among the greatest things that Jobs left to his company was the […]

With social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, news and gossip can spread like wildfire. Sometimes, it moves a little TOO fast. Word of mouth has been one of the most popular forms of passing news along since language arrived with homo sapiens. People would gather to learn the news of the day/week/month/year. Without the written word, […]

Most of us know the therapy cliche of a patient sitting in a doctor’s office with their feet propped up on a leather sofa as they divulge their life’s problems. All the while, a doctor sits in an adjacent chair, jotting down notes furiously and writing various prescriptions. Whether we have been through this ourselves, know […]

While electrical telegraphy had proved beneficial since the early 1840s — even phasing out the Pony Express as the main news transmitter– there was one major imitation: wires.  The transmission was the fastest of its time. However, wires limited where that signal could be sent. In order to send a message, telegraph wires had to connect the sending […]

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, along with his assistant, Alfred Vail, created the first electrical telegraph. After several successful […]

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. 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 “wall” just moved a little further again. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch recently revealed that he is planning to start a daily digital newspaper exclusively for tablet devices like the iPad. WWD.com reported that the new “newspaper” will be called The Daily and is expected to cost about a dollar a week or four bucks […]

Watchdogs. Honest. Gatekeepers. Objective. We have a lot of different words to describe journalist, but some how “trustworthy” never seems to be one of them. It seems the integrity of journalist has been questioned by the public for longer then many of us might realize — since 1648 (at least). In twenty first century journalism […]

The Washington Post released an iPad app Monday in their effort to stay connected with the changing technology of journalism. They also released of a video of their staff and reporters using the iPad and Bob Woodward trying to figure out just what the app does. For now the app and its content are free. […]

With all the talk of Google TV and Apple TV and integrating internet content with television content in class, I figured it was time for a brief look at the major technological innovations of TV. 1927- Philo Farnsworth patents his idea for what would be the first television. 1928- W3xK becomes America’s first television network […]

Technology is an ever-growing and ever-expanding field in human existence, but it seems to repeat itself. I’m not saying that technology is cyclical, but that it moves across a line reaching into the future and sometimes there are certain patterns on that line that tend to repeat. Specifically, I’m referring to how people never know […]

The Chinese inventions of paper and the printing press are often overlooked by the Western World. However, China was the first country to improve on the paper making process and created the first moveable type printing press, without which journalism would not have evolved to where it is today. Stephens cites A.D. 105 as the […]