From this nation's beginning, newspapers have played an important role in society as watchdogs and as purveyors of important information required for good citizenship.
But the road to that high calling is paved with government interference, sensationalism, turf wars and drama.
Early newspapers were simple, with letters, shipping news and short items of community news. They did not begin keeping government honest until after John Peter Zenger made his stand against seditious libel.
Early political cartoons played a part in fanning fires of patriotism — and jingoism, often. This vital part of the newspaper has faded in recent years, but thank goodness for John Branch of the Express-News. Although often criticized by conservatives, he "draws it like he sees it." See more cartoons here.
The sensational periods, Jazz Journalism and Yellow Press Journalism, attracted thousands of readers with their sensational, often shocking, stories and images.
Hard economic times, the high cost of paper and ink plus a downturn in advertising have caused many newspapers to downsize and lay off hundreds. But the basic purpose of the newspaper of muckraking enunciated by Finley Peter Dunne (left) will continue in whatever form it takes: To comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.Also, the mechanism or process used by newspapers to gather information and organize it so the average person can understand it is still important.
So, keep in mind what has gone on before as you study today's newspapers.
Our class discussion on Thursday pleased me. More people communicated their thoughts and feelings, which is what real communication is all about.
I trust in your earlier study of interpersonal communication you studied (and we hope, learned) the levels of communication. Many of you are communicating at a high level. The discussion of disparity of media coverage between Anglo and minority missing children was pretty Gut Level, I thought.
These are the kinds of observations I hope you make. We all deserve fair and unbiased protection of the law and equal coverage by our media, and if we don't get that, it's up to you, the citizenry, to demand it.See Black and missing, but not forgotten for one viewpoint.
Some of the examples we talked about were obvious; others were a bit less apparent. The point of the exercise was to show how media personnel may have to crawl through legal and ethical mine fields on the job. Remember, the job of a photographer is to TAKE PHOTOS.
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