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Washington correspondents from newspapers around the country were as unabashedly partisan during the 1800’s as the Washington newspapers themselves. As Bernard A.Weisberger points out in his book Reporters for the Union, a journalist might describe one senator as having “a fawning, sinister smile; a keen, snaky eye; . . .his whole air and mien suggesting a subdued combination of Judas Iscariot with Uriah Heep.” The speech of a senator who shared the reporter’s partisan views, however, was “full of marrow and grit, and enunciated with a courage which did one’s heart good to hear.” No one complained about biased coverage because no one expected anything different.

Partisan journalism survived as the dominant approach to covering political news until the end of the 19th century. But around that time, two forces, both related to the rise of a national economy, began to militate for change in the ethic of partisan journalism. First, a large class of readers developed who were educated and interested in receiving accounts of political news that did not try to make up their minds for them. Second, wire services such as the Associated Press—which, as the telegraph spread, were serving more and more newspapers in every part of the country—decided that partisanship was bad business. In the course of pleasing one party’s newspapers, the wire services would displease not only the other party’s, but also all of those readers who wanted their news unleavened with overt political bias.

Michael Nelson, Virginia Quarterly Review. Why the Media Love Presidents and Presidents Hate the Media.

Our Presidents Day reading brings us to the history of American political journalism. 

(via futurejournalismproject)

(Source: futurejournalismproject)

3 months ago
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