5 ms·

Is that actually true? Historically? If you go back to the first newspapers, they were basically rags. Throughout history, newspapers have been censored, they'v

Is that actually true? Historically? If you go back to the first newspapers, they were basically rags. Throughout history, newspapers have been censored, they've been biased, partisan, used as propaganda. At the turn of the American Revolution they became political weapons. Later the robber barons used them to shape public opinion and punish rivals. Lately we seem to make a lot of proclamations about how terrible things are, and then we feel bad because we think things are "worse than ever". But usually they aren't as bad as they used to be.

randomtwiddler 4y ago
The notable difference is that historically the ownership of the outlets was widely varied. Now it is consolidated under the control of very few. That doesn't seem like a positive change to me.
dredmorbius 4y ago
The comparison isn't with Gilded-Age era Yellow Journalism (generally 1890s -- 1910s), but the period of professionalised journalism born from Walter Lippmann's book Public Opinion and dating roughly from the 1920s through about 2010, with a significant decline being noted beginning with the consolidation and financialisation of news in the 1980s. In reality, there's been a long-term secular decline remarkably constant over decades dating to the 1950s and the end of WWII. That's been punctuated by a number of factors --- the advent of television and television news, mass advertising, cable TV, media consolidation, financialisation, the Internet, neoliberalism, 9/11, the US-Iraq War & War on Terrorism, the 2008-09 global financial crisis (which tanked ad spend), and the rise of the smartphone and mobile social media. I.F. Stone interviewed on the PBS show Day at Night in 1974 spoke of what he saw as a golden age of American journalism in the 1970s, largely with the reporting on Watergate and the Vietnam War. That's the zenith to which the present situation might be compared. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g The topic is of course fare more complex. I've compiled a "light reading list" which I'm still working through myself, and need to add to, here: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_advertising_sustainability_externalities/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...
- CSMastermind 4y ago
  You might want to consider adding Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another to your list. It follows a similar theme to many of the books you have listed and discusses more modern topics like the coverage of the Iraq War and the Trump presidency.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    Thanks for the suggestion. I've somewhat tried to stick with older sources, preferably over 25--30 years old, for similar reasons to the Ask Historians subreddit: the works are time-tested, and older history is more settled and generally less liable to stir up present partisanship. The general principles seem to be surprisingly consistent over time, and it's often useful to consider modern information technologies and implementations through the lens of earlier forms and variations. Scale and speed do seem to be a significant deviation from that rule. Where I've made exceptions for newer works, it has been those which focus more on the technology, organisations, and institutions rather than the parties involved. That said, I'll give it a look.
- majormajor 4y ago
  In my dad's view Watergate was itself the first signs of the decline, the press was unfair to Nixon, etc. Don't get him started on the press and Reagan. There has certainly been a rise in the availability of low-quality crap since then - especially post-Twitter - but I have a pet theory that if people's politics hadn't shifted towards the extremes in a way that caused them to distrust the old mainstream, there would be less interest in the crap. (E.g. Fox News didn't "convert" anyone in that house, it was just a previously-unavailable sort of preaching to the choir that hit a ready audience. Funnily, after a couple decades of it, though, it lost its flavor to them.) tldr: common view is "lower quality media" -> "partisanship and division" and I don't know how we'd be confident in that vs "partisanship and division" -> "more demand for low quality media."
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    This was evident to me during the 2020 election, when many Republicans denounced Fox News over their early (but correct) call for Arizona, and starting advocating for everyone to ditch Fox and switch to Newsmax or OANN. Fox then had to do a lot of damage control to assuage their audience (essentially lowering the bar to satisfy them).
towaway15463 4y ago
For those ignorant of history every day is an incomprehensible shock, for those well versed in it a reminder that human nature never changes.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Very pithy. Is that yours or are you quoting someone?
  - towaway15463 4y ago
    It’s mine although probably influenced from various sources.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  > For those ignorant of history every day is an incomprehensible shock, for those well versed in it a reminder that human nature never changes. That's a popular claim - just like the claims against journalism - but also historically ignorant. Human biology hasn't changed in ~200K years, but human nature has changed dramatically. It took 190K years to discover agriculture and 195K years to discover writing, and look what happened since then! Look at our natures compared with humans 200, 500, 1K, 10K, 100K years ago: We're democratic, free, incredibly prosperous and safe and peaceful, etc. etc.
  - FredPret 4y ago
    That’s because when we started farming and writing, we created a larger creature of which we are the constituents - civilization. It is now evolving much faster than we are.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - homonculus1 4y ago
    Ha. Human nature hasn't changed a bit, we just have oil now.
dilan-dio4 4y ago
Completely true. When compared to the history of the US, most Americans operate with the perspective of a gold fish trying to remember the Fibonacci sequence. Things are far from "worse than ever": https://nypost.com/2018/03/03/9-charts-that-prove-theres-never-been-a-better-time-to-be-alive/ https://nypost.com/2018/03/03/9-charts-that-prove-theres-nev...
hinkley 4y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism is a term used to vilify Hearst and Pulitzer. The highest prize in journalism is still named after one of the canonically worst actors in journalistic integrity. Everyone who was alive then is now dead, so of course we are having to relive that era.
rufus_foreman 4y ago
Given that we think of someone like John D. Rockefeller as a robber baron due in part to journalists like Ida Tarbell, it seems like the newspapers were being used to shape public opinion of people like Rockefeller rather than the other way around.

randomtwiddler 4y ago

The notable difference is that historically the ownership of the outlets was widely varied. Now it is consolidated under the control of very few. That doesn't seem like a positive change to me.

dredmorbius 4y ago

The comparison isn't with Gilded-Age era Yellow Journalism (generally 1890s -- 1910s), but the period of professionalised journalism born from Walter Lippmann's book Public Opinion and dating roughly from the 1920s through about 2010, with a significant decline being noted beginning with the consolidation and financialisation of news in the 1980s. In reality, there's been a long-term secular decline remarkably constant over decades dating to the 1950s and the end of WWII. That's been punctuated by a number of factors --- the advent of television and television news, mass advertising, cable TV, media consolidation, financialisation, the Internet, neoliberalism, 9/11, the US-Iraq War & War on Terrorism, the 2008-09 global financial crisis (which tanked ad spend), and the rise of the smartphone and mobile social media. I.F. Stone interviewed on the PBS show Day at Night in 1974 spoke of what he saw as a golden age of American journalism in the 1970s, largely with the reporting on Watergate and the Vietnam War. That's the zenith to which the present situation might be compared. https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g https://yewtu.be/watch?v=qV3gO3zxQ1g The topic is of course fare more complex. I've compiled a "light reading list" which I'm still working through myself, and need to add to, here: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_advertising_sustainability_externalities/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/7k7l4m/media_a...

CSMastermind 4y ago
You might want to consider adding Matt Taibbi's Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another to your list. It follows a similar theme to many of the books you have listed and discusses more modern topics like the coverage of the Iraq War and the Trump presidency.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion. I've somewhat tried to stick with older sources, preferably over 25--30 years old, for similar reasons to the Ask Historians subreddit: the works are time-tested, and older history is more settled and generally less liable to stir up present partisanship. The general principles seem to be surprisingly consistent over time, and it's often useful to consider modern information technologies and implementations through the lens of earlier forms and variations. Scale and speed do seem to be a significant deviation from that rule. Where I've made exceptions for newer works, it has been those which focus more on the technology, organisations, and institutions rather than the parties involved. That said, I'll give it a look.
majormajor 4y ago
In my dad's view Watergate was itself the first signs of the decline, the press was unfair to Nixon, etc. Don't get him started on the press and Reagan. There has certainly been a rise in the availability of low-quality crap since then - especially post-Twitter - but I have a pet theory that if people's politics hadn't shifted towards the extremes in a way that caused them to distrust the old mainstream, there would be less interest in the crap. (E.g. Fox News didn't "convert" anyone in that house, it was just a previously-unavailable sort of preaching to the choir that hit a ready audience. Funnily, after a couple decades of it, though, it lost its flavor to them.) tldr: common view is "lower quality media" -> "partisanship and division" and I don't know how we'd be confident in that vs "partisanship and division" -> "more demand for low quality media."
- ModernMech 4y ago
  This was evident to me during the 2020 election, when many Republicans denounced Fox News over their early (but correct) call for Arizona, and starting advocating for everyone to ditch Fox and switch to Newsmax or OANN. Fox then had to do a lot of damage control to assuage their audience (essentially lowering the bar to satisfy them).

towaway15463 4y ago

For those ignorant of history every day is an incomprehensible shock, for those well versed in it a reminder that human nature never changes.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Very pithy. Is that yours or are you quoting someone?
- towaway15463 4y ago
  It’s mine although probably influenced from various sources.
wolverine876 4y ago
> For those ignorant of history every day is an incomprehensible shock, for those well versed in it a reminder that human nature never changes. That's a popular claim - just like the claims against journalism - but also historically ignorant. Human biology hasn't changed in ~200K years, but human nature has changed dramatically. It took 190K years to discover agriculture and 195K years to discover writing, and look what happened since then! Look at our natures compared with humans 200, 500, 1K, 10K, 100K years ago: We're democratic, free, incredibly prosperous and safe and peaceful, etc. etc.
- FredPret 4y ago
  That’s because when we started farming and writing, we created a larger creature of which we are the constituents - civilization. It is now evolving much faster than we are.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- homonculus1 4y ago
  Ha. Human nature hasn't changed a bit, we just have oil now.

dilan-dio4 4y ago

Completely true. When compared to the history of the US, most Americans operate with the perspective of a gold fish trying to remember the Fibonacci sequence. Things are far from "worse than ever": https://nypost.com/2018/03/03/9-charts-that-prove-theres-never-been-a-better-time-to-be-alive/ https://nypost.com/2018/03/03/9-charts-that-prove-theres-nev...

hinkley 4y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism is a term used to vilify Hearst and Pulitzer. The highest prize in journalism is still named after one of the canonically worst actors in journalistic integrity. Everyone who was alive then is now dead, so of course we are having to relive that era.

rufus_foreman 4y ago

Given that we think of someone like John D. Rockefeller as a robber baron due in part to journalists like Ida Tarbell, it seems like the newspapers were being used to shape public opinion of people like Rockefeller rather than the other way around.