Short lectures in

Media History

Chapter ThreePrint Media in the 20th

and 21st centuries

Press in transition Early 20th century

◦Publishers at the top of their games ◦Technology mature, profits high ◦Most towns had two papers

1970s – technology driven mergers◦Monopoly newspaper takes over

2000s – digital revolution ◦Most newspapers in deep financial

trouble ◦Democratic experiment also in

trouble

Overview Muckraking press World War I press Russian Communist revolution Indian non-violent revolution German Nazi revolution World War II press Civil Rights era Vietnam and Watergate era

◦ Literary & Gonzo journalism ◦ Environmental journalism

End game for the printing revolution

State of the press 1911• Will Irwin series Colliers Magazine • The press is “wonderfully able… (but) with real faults.”

• “It is the mouthpiece of an older stock. It lags behind the thought of its times. . .

• “To us of this younger generation, our daily press is speaking, for the most part, with a dead voice, because the supreme power resides in men of that older generation.”

• Blamed Associated Press monopoly

A familiar complaint

Will Irwin’s ideas about newspapers are similar to those of many young writers today.

Muckrakers • Speech by Teddy Roosevelt April 14, 1906 • Seen as an attack on investigative press • Cites John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (1678)• Man with the Muck Rake

• He “fixes his eyes … only on that which is vile and debasing…” • “At this moment we are passing through a period of great unrest-social, political, and industrial unrest. • “It is of the utmost importance for our future that this should prove to be not the unrest of mere rebelliousness against life, of mere dissatisfaction with the inevitable inequality of conditions, but the unrest of a resolute and eager ambition to secure the betterment of the individual and the nation.

Who were the muckrakers?

Ida B. Wells Baker-Barnett (1862–1931)

An African American editor of Free Speechnewspaper in Memphis, TN,

Investigated the 1891 lynching of three innocent men at the hands of a white mob.

Newspaper was burned down – fled to New York

Became one of the most influential leaders in the early civil rights movement.

Who were the muckrakers?

Lincoln Steffens (1866–1936)

Noted for “The Shame of the Cities”

1904 series on municipal corruption for McClure’s Magazine.

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968)

“The Jungle,” a 1906 novel about the meat packing industry of Chicago

Based on investigations by Sinclair for the Socialist magazine Appeal to

Reason.

Public uproar led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration.

Who were the muckrakers? Ida Tarbell (1857–1944)

Exposed Standard Oil company’s rise to monopoly by corrupt business practices In a 1902 series in McClure’s Magazine.

Encouraged antitrust law enforcement

Other muckrakers:

David Graham Phillips (1867–1911)—In “Treason of the Senate,” a 1906 series in Cosmopolitan exposed senators who had taken direct bribes

Cecil Chesterton (1879–1918)— London’s New Witness, exposed stock fraud in the Marconi Scandal of 1912. French Le Matin also investigated.

Samuel Hopkins Adams (1871–1958)— “The Great American Fraud,” Collier’s Magazine in 1905, exposed patent medicine. (See Ch. 6 Advertising)

WWI and the press Censorship official Press wore army uniforms French and British newspapers

often ran with empty spaces where stories were pulled by censors

George Seldes interview with German Gen. Hindenburg censored after war, contributing to myths that led to rise of Nazis

WWI and the press 2 Outside the station in the public

square, the people of Louvain (Belgium) passed in an unending procession, women bareheaded, weeping, men carrying the children asleep on their shoulders, all hemmed in by the shadowy army of gray wolves . . . It was all like a scene upon the stage, unreal, inhuman. You felt it could not be true…

Richard Harding Davis, 1914

Censored doughboys

Ridiculous censorship -- American soldiers celebrate at a German “Kantine” they captured in 1918. The photo was censored, because American soldiers couldn’t be seen drinking alcohol.

The Bolo Pasha affair • WWI German plot to buy French newspapers using money laundered by American banks.

• Bolo Pasha bought Le Journal of Paris to advocate surrender to the Germans.

• Linked to German spy Mata Hari, also briefly to William Randolph Hearst

• Pasha was executed for treason by the French in 1917

The French WWI Bolo Pasha affair showed that manipulation of the press could be a tactic of warfare

Russian revolution ‘First step’ in the Russian

Revolution of 1917 was to create a newspaper

The mere task of writing and distributing Iskra (Spark) would create a network of agents

Despite this, absolute censorship was the rule

Execution of dissidents was commonplace

Vladimir Lenin started a newspaper in order to start a revolution. But he was no friend of the free press.

Mysterious propaganda photo

Ukraine, about 1925. Would journalists really set type on the back of a truck in the middle of a wheat field?  Was it staged, or faked, or part of a serious effort to get journalists close to the people?

John Reed American journalist who wrote

passionately about the Russian revolution of 1917.

“As we came out into the dark and gloomy day all around the grey horizon, factory whistles were blowing, a hoarse and nervous sound, full of foreboding. By tens of thousands, the working people poured out … and the humming slums belched out their dun and miserable hordes.”Ten Days that Shook the World

India’s non-violent revolution

Mahatma Gandhi used newspapers to campaign for India’s freedom from British colonialism in the 1900 – post WWII period.

“The journal became for me a training in self-restraint...”

Non-violence (Satyagraha) “would probably have been impossible without Indian Opinion.”

Gandhi pursued journalism as an aid to his mission in life: to teach by example

Among many accomplish-ments, Gandhi edited half a dozen newspapers during his long career as the leader of India’s independence movement.

Nazi revolutio

nGermany

1920s - 1945 Grabbed

newspapers, wire services

Absolute censorship

Nazi book burning, Berlin, May 10, 1933.

A scene not witnessed since the Middle Ages, and a harbinger of disaster, to US correspondent William L. Shirer.

WWII and the press Furious debates on the home

frontPre-war links between US and

Nazi industries infuriated Americans

Censorship by military on front lines ◦Didn’t prevent news about incidents

like Gen. Patton hitting shell-shocked soldiers

Reconstruction of press in Germany & Japan was a top post-war priority

WWII correspondents “There is an agony in your heart and you almost feel ashamed to look at them. They are just guys from Broadway and Main Street, but you wouldn’t remember them.… If you could see them just once, just for an instant, you would know that no matter how hard people work back home, they are not keeping pace with these infantrymen.” -- Ernie Pyle

“The God-Damned Infantry” was among Ernie Pyle’s best – remembered articles. A soldier’s writer, Pyle concentrated on the ordinary guys, not the generals and the grand strategies.

WWII correspondents “The liberation (of Dachau) was a frenzied scene … Inmates of the camp hugged and embraced the American troops, kissed the ground before them and carried them shoulder high around the place.” -- Marguerite Higgins, May, 1945

Only three years out of journalism school, Marguerite Higgins convinced editors at the Herald Tribune to send her to Europe in 1944. She also broke barriers for women reporters everywhere, convincing Gen. Douglas MacArthur to lift the ban on women correspondents in the Korean War in 1950.

Double V for African AmericansPittsburg Courier, Chicago Defender and others were main source of news for African Americans

But wartime news of prejudice and rioting against blacks was suppressed by government

In WWI, critical reporting even led to the conviction of one African American editor under the Sedition Act

In WWII, settled on “Double V” -- Victory over fascism abroad, victory over racism at home

Chicago Defender publisher John Sengstacke and an unidentified editor c. 1943

Hutchins Commission 1947Truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent

account of the day’s events in a context which gives them meaning;

Forum for the exchange of comment and criticism;

Representative picture of the constituent groups in the society;

Presentation and clarification of the goals and values of the society; and

Full access to the day’s intelligence.

Freedom’s Journal, 1827 was the first

“White and black must fall or flourish together.” Frederick Douglass, 1847, North Star

Altogether, 2,700 African American newspapers published in 19th and 20th centuries ◦ Most did not survive over a

decade Major daily papers were

Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Defender

Ebony Magazine major success 1940s

African American Press

Frederick Douglass Publisher, North Star

One of the finest moments in the history of the press

Agent of national reconciliation Framed issues as “Civil Rights” not “race

war” Many incidents outraged public -- Emmett Till

1955, Medgar Evers, 1963 A civil rights bombing was “… the harvest of

defiance of the courts and the encouragement of citizens to defy law on the part of many Southern politicians.” -- Ralph McGill, Atlanta Journal & Constitution

Civil Rights and the Press

Watergate 1972 – 74

Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein

Washington Post entry-level reporters

Found Watergate burglars had links to Nixon White House

Investigated “dirty tricks” in campaign, also money to pay operatives and burglars

Resulted in resignation of President Richard Nixon and criminal convictions for seven members of administration

Vietnam war coverage US press critical of war methods but

generally supportive of war aims Networks generally kept gory footage

off the air Public opinion against war stronger

than press coverage Idea of press subverting war is akin to

German “dolschtoss” myth Nevertheless, conservatives still

blame press for “losing the war”

Environmental news Not a new phenomena –

◦Water pollution was covered by Benjamin Franklin in 1730s

Major new interest due to energy crisis, Earth Day, oil spills, nuclear accidents and climate change

Specialized science writers emerge to handle complexities of coverage ◦National Association of Science Writers,

Society of Environmental Journalists

End game for the press New technologies made printing

more profitable in 1970s This led to consolidations and

mergers Monopolies grew complacent and

Wall Street demanded more profits

Press was in a weak position to meet the digital revolution in 2000 – 2011