Short lectures
in Media
History
Chapter Three
Print 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 Speech
newspaper 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 accomplishments, Gandhi edited half a
dozen newspapers during his
long career as the leader of
India’s independence
movement.
Nazi
revolution
Germany
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 front
 Pre-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 Americans
Pittsburg 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 1947





Truthful, 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.
African American Press
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

Frederick Douglass
Publisher, North Star
Civil Rights and the Press





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
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
