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A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both. -- James Madison
“When a dog bites a
man that is not news,
because it happens so often.
But if a man bites a
dog, that is news.”
- Editor John B. Bogart, New York Sun
man that is not news,
because it happens so often.
But if a man bites a
dog, that is news.”
- Editor John B. Bogart, New York Sun
About Me
Followers
forthcoming
- "A Newspaper Is a Collection" (poem)
- "News Today" (music video)
- 20th Century Man
- A Walk Back Through a Day's New
- BBC Facebook Parody
- Breaking News
- Bullshit
- Citizen Journalism -- What Is It?
- Civil Rights Movement
- Class Project: Media Parody
- CNN War (music video)
- Colbert versus Keen
- Dead!
- Dirty Laundry (Remix)
- Electronic Book Burning
- F the CC (music video)
- FCCFU
- Future of Book Publishing
- Internet Art!
- Interview With Andrew Keen
- Journalism Back in the Day (short movie)
- Journalism?
- Locus Novus
- Logorama (short film)
- Monoculture
- Murrow Broadcast From London
- Neil Postman on Cyberspace (YouTube)
- New York Times Home Page
- Newsboys
- Newsboys Shooting Craps
- Newsies
- NPR (Your Brain on Computers)
- Penn & Teller on Marketplace of Ideas
- Penn & Teller's FCC
- Perez Hilton
- Postman Comic: Orwell vs Huxley
- Reconstruction of American Journalism
- See It Now
- Story of Electronics
- Story of Stuff
- The Yellow Kid
- Turkel
- Video Game Faces
- Whackamurdoch
- Who Owns the Media?
- Who Owns the Web?
- World of Blogging (music video)
10 comments:
If anything, Mightier than the Sword illustrates what I have always believe—history is not and can never be irrelevant, not if one wants to have any hope of understanding the current state of the world and society. I think this might actually be Streitmatter’s point, though he directs it more concretely to the little-known history of the American news media. “The contributions that progressive journalists made to this country in the early twentieth century established a high water mark that remains unsurpassed,” he writes, during his chapter concerning the impact of what he calls the “golden age of reform journalism,” commonly referred to as the age of “muckraking.”
As is illustrated in the book, the influence of muckrakers on both American journalism and American political and social history was profound. They are credited with the creation of the Food and Drug Act, with the destruction of monopolies, and perhaps most importantly, with creating a press that has the ability to both report on and influence events as they unfold. How can that possibly be irrelevant? How can everything that has led up to our current state be irrelevant? How can everything we’ve used and created to get here be irrelevant?
I agree with Grace. History is relevant especially to the press because it helps reporters inform their audience better with more facts about certain issues like historical conflicts, political problems and social changes.
Muckrakers helped America think about what we consume and without them the FDA would probably never exist.
Because of the magazines of the 1940's, women would have never been encouraged to get out there and perform jobs for the war effort, making it possible to consider other career paths besides just being a housewife.
History does more than just remind the press of the good things they contributed to, it helps journalists to keep in mind past mistakes so a conscious effort can be made not to repeat them. The studying of past effects hasn't been popular recently, but it very much informs us who we are as a society now. To ignore it just seems foolish.
History is relevant. People like Henry Ford who declared that "hisotry is bunk" are usually the same people digging their heels against any sort of change. If history is irrelevant and people actually adopted this principle. We would probably be in an even worse cycle of war and crime. People would not be able to reflect on others actions and realize the error of their ways. I think history is not only relevant to our existence but it is essential to our growth as a society. History is particularly important to Journalists because we must know how our field has grown and changed with the laws of the country. Cases like watergate are huge chapters in this book for a journalist and are motivating. If it was not for our attention to history than people would become complacent or even apathetic and feel as though "what's the point?" "why am i even doing this?" It gives people the knowledge that it is possible to have a huge impact and really get things changed.
I agree that history is relevant, especially for journalists. Newspaper articles are the best primary sources today, and while they were current at that time, they are now a part of history. Even as a kid when I learned history in school, I learned about muckraking and yellow journalism, and how those practices of journalism affected society. For example. the World War II introduced a high demand for women in the workforce, and the people to allocate this message were journalists. Newspaper headlines,as seen in the New York Times or Newsweek, called for the need of women to become nurses and other professions. Magazines such as Vogue glamorized the working girl, and presented feature articles that described the typical day of a woman. Without journalist capturing these moments, women would have no idea how much they were needed while the men were out in war. And events such as this probably wouldn't have led to the second wave feminist movement, a time where women demanded more rights in the workforce. Without the knowledge of history, we would never sit down and think "how can we make society better for ourselves and others." It is just ashamed that there are people who are ignorant of history, and take everything they have for granted.
History is definitely relevant. Referencing back to our class conversation on this topic, I think that it is gut instincts that guide policy makers in decision making, not knowledge of history. But history is important to understanding our past and society’s actions and motives. “Mightier than the Sword” is overwhelmingly supportive of this statement. I agree with previous posts that reporters who value history are better at informing their audience because they know the context of the situation they’re writing about. As is demonstrated in Streitmatter’s novel, journalists have played a huge role in not only recording history, but impacting it and in turn creating it. Examples of this are the Watergate scandal, the exposure of Joe McCarthy, encouragement of women to join the war effort, muckraking, and newspapers’ power in slowing the growth of the Ku Klux Klan. On a side note, I found it interesting and disheartening that despite women being encouraged to work in traditionally male dominated jobs during World War II, gender roles still existed. When magazines like Vogue portrayed women as being beautiful and glamorous while doing these jobs (like wearing pumps while drilling) it shows how uncomfortable society and the media were with abandoning these gender roles completely. This is another example of why history is relevant. Because it is important to understanding how different minorities (and “majorities”) have been viewed throughout history and how that view has changed or not changed with the times.
I agree with everyone in saying that history is relevant. I think that we must know and understand history in order to be good at what we are doing today. As we learned in all our history classes, history repeats itself and if we know what happened in the past, then we can fix it in the future. As we mentioned in class, history is important, but it is what we as individuals choose to do with the knowledge of history that really matters. If we choose to overlook what we already know, then we are failed as a society. What was interesting to me in the book was the chapter about the Ku Klux Klan. It was interesting to see how while the journalists were trying to demonstrate to the public just how terrible the Ku Klux Klan was, they actually brought the news to a whole new audience who never heard of this before and wanted to take place in the action rather than get rid of it. So, in trying to demolish the Ku Klux Klan, they actually made it bigger. However, these newspapers were awarded Pulitzer Prizes. But journalists didn’t stop there; they continued to down talk the Ku Klux Klan and eventually fulfilled their ultimate duty of having a positive influence on the public. What the coverage of the Ku Klux Klan showed us was that with determination in finding out what is going on and documenting it for the public could actually take down a powerful organization such as the Ku Klux Klan. This is relevant history that journalists can learn from.
I don't think history should or can ever be considered irrelevant. Streitmatter illustrates that by paying attention to history, journalists have been able to change it. For example, Ida Tarbell was able to help break Standard Oil's monopoly by "tracing its history, leaders, and inner workings" (84). In class we spoke about the importance of context in articles and without analyzing history, this information would not make it into a story, leaving readers confused and creating what Postman called a peek-a-boo world. The reason why Tarbell, Phillips, and publications such as the New York World were so successful in rewriting history is because they paid attention to it. Phillips recounted the careers of Chauncey M. Depew, Thomas Collier Platt and other senators to find that they were all controlled by corporations. The World published an expose on the Ku Klux Klan that highlighted the comments made by the organization's leaders to illustrate their backward views. Though the world didn't achieve the outcome they desired, other publications continued to report on the atrocities committed by the KKK and this persuaded the state legislature to act. Father Coughlin used history (although a very skewed version) as a way to gain followers and indoctrinate his viewers with his extreme views. Clearly, history is a powerful tool that can be used to manipulate and this chapter illustrates the importance of studying history so that we don't repeat mistakes. Mightier than the Sword shows readers that by acknowledging and understanding history, we can better understand our society's beliefs, why they have or have not changed, and what we can do to transform these beliefs to progress.
I agree with the earlier blog posts that history is absolutely relevant at this day in age, especially for journalists. I think for journalism and any mass media, history is important because news articles are one of the main sources that we as a society get our information from. If the “experts” don’t know any background information of what they’re writing about, how are we supposed to view them as credible? The chapter on muckraking shows how important journalism is to our lives, and that it in itself creates history by bringing awareness to the masses; enough so to make serious changes. Ida Tarbell, also known as the “Queen of the Muckrakers” dug up serious information about Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company and exposed the illegal agreements he was partaking in. Another major issue that arose as a result of muckraking was the terrible quality of food and drugs America was consuming, which lead to the passing of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. These few examples show how important history is to journalism, and how important journalism is to history.
The idea of history being irrelevant seems absurd to me. History is the reason for where we are today and how we came to be here. Not knowing our history, is the same thing as not knowing our identity. This seems especially true in the world of journalism, because it is the journalist's job to report current events which will later become pieces of history. The piece from our class discussions and the novel that I find disturbing is the role of women in journalism and the workforce in general. It is difficult to imagine a world in which women were genuinly considered inferior and it is even harder to realize that this is still an undercurrent in society today. Just the fact that women's rights and health is a highly controversial topic in politics is disgusting. And when I learned that women magazines portrayed women in male dominated careers as glamorous, I can't help wondering if this is still affecting our mindset of women today. Media makes it very difficult for women to be considered feminine or beautiful in a different way than they portray, and that is rooted deep down in our history. Which is the exact reason why history is relevant because for every action or tradition we have today, the idea for it was developed in the past. How can who we were be irrelevant to who we are today?
I'm sorry this is late but I agree that history is definitely relevant. I remember being confused at the beginning of year when you said that what has happened in the last 10 years has almost made all of journalism history up to this point obsolete. However, I think that reading this book has definitely helped me gain a grasp on journalism and all of its accomplishments and it has made me realize just how influential journalism has actually been over the course of history. I mean wow. It was practically responsible for the revolution and the spanish-american war. The impact that journalism has only makes me that much more interested in it and that much more proud to study it. If I was going to go to graduate school for journalism and I never learned all this history then I feel like I would have no sense of the extreme power that journalism possesses. I mean, maybe it doesn't possess this much power today but learning its roots and where it came from and how much it did is really important for anyone wanting to study journalism.
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