I.                     Journalism in American Political History

1.       In America the media has much greater freedom than in other countries, such as France and Great Britain, because in the U.S., media companies are privately controlled, and they only need licenses from the gov’t—nothing else.

                                                               i.      In England, politicians can sue those who make fun of them, while in France, broadcasting is governed by a national agency that can control what and what not to show the public.

2.       The media can provide exposure for a political candidate, but it can also ruin a politician’s career by showing negative views of him or her.

3.       Basically, there are four general periods in American journalistic history, each with its own major change during the time:

                                                               i.      In the early years of the Republic, newspapers were expensive to print and usually read by the political elite, and the lack of transportation made each paper’s circulation small; as a result, the earliest newspapers tended to be very partisan and support political parties.

a.       There was not necessarily objective news reporting.

b.       Alexander Hamilton created the Gazette of the United States, while Thomas Jefferson created the National Gazette, financing its editor with federal funds.

                                                             ii.      Advances in technology and transportation made newspapers cheaper to buy and more widely available, and the invention of the telegraph meant that news could be flashed almost instantaneously from cities across the country!

a.       The partisanship became one that was based on the editors’ points of view, not on the influences of the political parties, and many journalists resorted to sensationalism, or the filling of stories with violence, romance, patriotism, and exposés, to popularize their papers.

b.       As a result, the real stories were often embellished to make readers interested, and many stories were just flat out made up!

c.       Strong-willed publishers like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer became powerful political forces, using their influence to shape political actions (i.e. Spanish-American War) and enrich themselves.

                                                            iii.      The middle class was soon repelled by this “yellow journalism,” and many opinion magazines, like the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, McClure’s, Scribner’s, and Cosmopolitan sprang up, bemoaning the issues of corruption during the times and constantly adding muckrakers, or people who looked to expose the dirt and evil in society (monopolies, corrupt gov’t, et al).

a.       Some people didn’t like the muckrakers, calling them troublemakers.

                                                            iv.      In the 1920s and 40s, the invention of the radio and television greatly enhanced political strategy, since candidates could buy [expensive back then in the early days] radio or television time to expose their ideas to the public.

a.       However, people could simply tune to another station or channel.

b.       Eventually, CBS, NBC, and ABC came to dominate the news market, covering all the events with their massive influence, but recently, due to the Internet and other forms of media, their power has declined.

c.       The sound bite, of a video clip of a presidential contender speaking, has dropped from 42 seconds in 1968 to less than 10 seconds in 1988, which means that candidates have had a harder time recently to get their messages across television.

4.       Many candidates prefer call-in, town meeting formats when they are on TV as opposed to confrontational, disputative debates, but when they are prepared on what to say, it doesn’t necessarily help the public decide who is the best one, since no one can be sure how the candidate really feels.

                                                               i.      Most politicians nevertheless crave the spotlight, and they constantly try to get “visuals,” or filmed stories, about themselves on television—simply to get more exposure and more fame.

5.       It used to be that the media covered small groups of people, and that the readers of the newspapers were highly partisan, but as media has become less concentrated, the public has become freer to form groups according to what they believe, not to what others tell them to believe, and with electronic journalism in the form of the Internet and cable news networks, a new era of journalism has begun.