NOTE: This post isn’t directly related to the class readings, but I thought it would be nice to end the semester with an issue in journalism today. Many journalists in 2009 have a good grasp of new media techniques they can use to increase their online readership. Many beat reporters have blogs to publish insider […]
Author Archive
RashadM
This user hasn't shared any biographical information
When we discuss press freedom in our History of Journalism class, we usually center our discussions on government restrictions on publications throughout history. These governments would target newspapers which blasted authoritative figures, examples being kings and the Catholic Church. Today, the press has various high-impact public figures to blast, and restrictions (at least in the […]
In class, we like to talk about how we’ve come full-circle in many aspects of news coverage. Using the Internet, we have expanded our “Edge,” much like people did hundreds of years ago with the invention of written news. Our wire services are influenced by a collaboration between New York newspapers, who sent reporters on […]
Imagine reading something like this in a newspaper today: “We learn from the Albany Daily Advertiser of yesterday from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiser of Saturday….” That quote, taken from the Dec. 2, 1841 issue of the Boston Evening Transcript (and quoted in Mitchell Stephens‘ “A History of News“) was standard fare for early newspapers before […]
Disdain for the news media is a theme that runs through the fabric of our society. Think of the various ways the flow of information ticks people off: Unrelenting coverage of smear campaigns touches off firestorms of political analysis. Various political figures today (and throughout history) think the media are out to get them. Many […]
When Julius Caesar first made government records public, audiences other than wealthy elites and government officials finally had access to Roman news. With the access, came the urge to tell. With this mindset, pen and paper, aggregation was born. Early aggregators copied the posted news by hand and then sent them in “packets” to whoever […]
Johann Gutenberg‘s name — and the year 1450 — will forever be linked to the printing press, but there is more credit to go around. Chinese civilizations introduced movable type in 950, according to the chronological timeline in Mitchell Stephens‘ “A History of News.” As it follows, early Chinese news publication systems were some of […]
Demosthenes, the Greek orator (and quote-machine), wrote in the First Philippic that Athenians were obsessed with news by word of mouth. “Thus we all go about framing our several tales,” he said. Almost 150 years earlier, this obsession was on display for all to see. The courier/messenger Pheidippides ran from the Greek city Marathon to […]