Cmu. 340. Week 2 Overheads.

Why was "Political Press" content partisan, advocate?

Who controls production process?

What is their agenda?

(This lecture draws from the first chapter in Commercialization of News in the 19th Century -- required text for this class).

1. Political news today: something like 8 per cent of all non-advertising content of American newspaper. 1830s: Political news took up nearly 70 per cent of newspaper content.

2. Why? Why so much political news then? What was the environment in which political news made sense?

3. Last week we talked about the American Revolution. Advocacy became a hallmark of press content. "News" was highly advocate in nature. And editors became political activists outside the news room. Remember the work of Edes and Gill.

4. Remember, too, the larger issues in this class. We’re looking at mass media within a larger societal context. What’s the function or role of the press within the larger society? How do other institutions or interests look upon the press?

5. Lastly, remember that we need to look at the press of the early 19th century/early 1800s from the vantage point of those who lived then. Not from today’s vantage point.

Today we think of objectivity or the lack of bias as a key requirement for the media. Early 1800s: a very different point of view.

6. In chapter 1 of Commercialization: There are many examples of the types of partisan advocacy we are talking about. esp. see pp 23-28.

"The press causes political life to circulate through all the parts of that vast territory."

• 24 states
• Limited transportation systems
• Ohio = the West
• Communication in pre-electronic America: no phones, radio, TV, films, mass circulation magazines.

• Anti-party sentiment in the early Republic (from the Revolution: belief that politics is the source of corruption)
• Political oligarchy (Lack of competition for the presidency during the era of the Virginia Dynasty -- roughly 1801-24 -- Jefferson, Madison, Monroe)
• Election of 1824: End of the Virginia Dynasty, rise of competition for presidency. Success to presidency in dispute; emergence of new political activists and grass-roots political activism.

• Political parties rise. Components of parties: Central committees (to serve as organizers); desire to create a bond with public and lastly continuing suspicion that parties are bad.
• Role of the Press in this new political system: Editors emerge as key political organizer [in part because candidates cannot do it for themselves] and newspaper becomes official voice of the party.
• The parties in Jacksonian America

• Editors emerge as party leaders. (examples: Francis Preston Blair, editor of Washington Globe; Boston political editors [Nathan Hale, Charles G. Green and Benjamin Hallett]; New York state Antimasonic party: Thurlow Weed.
• Creating a bond with the public: Establishing and maintaining newspapers. Maintenance: political funding through federal patronage [Congressional printing contacts, Executive Dept. contracts], state patronage [governor, legislature] and donations from party faithful or through party ownership (e.g., Antimasons establish Boston Advocate, their political voice in Massachusetts)
• Competition for attention of voters. Belief that newspaper debate can win elections; advocacy therefore a key. Newspapers compete with each other in political debate. Serious, sustained debate.
• News is political advocacy. Argument, counter argument common.

Francis Preston Blair describes President Jackson’s political opponents: "A monied aristocracy...was acquiring a power over our people, and an influence in their government, which threatened to reduce our States to a degrading dependence on the nobility and gentry of a foreign kingdom [England]. It was the germ of an American nobility, an instrument ...of the aristocracy of England...

• Neutrality disdained. One partisan editor refuses to exchange with a so-called neutral paper:

"We have glanced at it editorial columns and find it precisely what we most of all things abhor and detest, to wit, a neutral paper. It pretends to be all things to all men. Now we would wish to be civil to the editor, but we can never consent to an exchange with any such paper, for we verily think they should all, one and all, be thrown out of the pale of the press. If we are asked why, we answer, that the Editor must be doing violence to his own opinions or else he had none to abuse. In either case, he is hardly entitled to the common civilities of his typographical brethren [e.g., other editors]. If he will anti-[mason], or democrat, we will exchange with him with pleasure.

1. Dual function of Jacksonian era political press

• Information, communication about politics.
• Integral part of political system.

2. Financial support = financial subsidies.

3. Contextual nature of news

• Press part of political system
• News political and advocate in nature
• "Objectivity" irrelevant to such a system

4. Dual role of editors

• Strong advocacy in the newspapers
• Political activism, leadership outside news office [e.g., party posts, organizational work, etc.].

More on the political press.

1. Advocate system

2. Truth emerges from advocacy

3. Jury can figure out truth

1. Advocate system

2. Truth...

3. Jury (public)...

A bit more on the political press

Why was content as it was?

1. Societal expectations

Parties depended upon press as a key link to electorate.

press part of larger political system.

2. Public view of "news"

Local events: oral culture

(Small town)

Politics: print

3. Financing.

Relatively small amounts of money were extremely helpful in sustaining newspapers. Capital: $500.

Operating on $400 a year or less.

Some readers paid for their subscriptions not in cash but in goods (chickens, wood, etc.).

Patronage provided CASH.

4. Editors’ views ("Norms")

Readers = voters.

Advocacy would work.

Obligation

5. Advocacy open.

"Bias" quite open.

6. Reading:

Often read aloud, publicly.

Debated at taverns, country stores

Newspapers contained material from opponents

1. America and Slavery

2. Who were the abolitionists?

3. Social radicals

Threat to political status quo

4. Creation of abolitionist press

Advocacy/Forum

Information

Network

Advocacy

6. 35-40 newspapers

Wm. Lloyd Garrison’s

Liberator

Elijah Lovejoy’s

Alton Observer

2. Other Media

Bias of Communication

Communication functions in the interest of those who control its various stages (defining, gathering, producing and distributing content)

1830.

1. Who controlled various stages of the news process?

a. Gender

b. Race

2. What were their interests?

3. How did content reflect those interests?

4. Who gets left out?

Other audiences/Segments/niches

5. Creation of new media

to reach those audiences

I. African American Press

a. 1827. Freedom’s Journal

NYC. Goal: Defense

b. 1847. Ram’s Horn. NYC.

Goal: Defense

c. Frederick Douglass

North Star

F.Douglass’ Paper

New Era

Goal: Education

II. Native American Press

1828. Cherokee Phoenix

Goal: "Proper and correct impressions"

III. Women’s Press

Legal limitations

Beginning of women’s rights movement

1860s: Suffrage

Functions:

Wider circ./speeches

Lasting impact

Community

Forum for ideas

Identified, created suffrage leaders

Ida B. Wells was a prominent African-American journalist.

1. What were the issues she dealt with? Be specific

2. What problems did she face as a journalist?

3. How did mainstream newspapers/reporters and politicians differ from her in describing key events? Be specific.

4. Why was "advocacy" a key part of her writing?