Final Post

When asked, "What Is the Transhistoric Relationship Between the Press and the Government in a Society Aspiring to Democracy?" the answer is not always straight to the point. The Government and Presses relationship sure has been a rocky one. Let's take a look back at one of the very first break news moments in America's history, the Civil War. This war was a major game-changer for America, I mean you had Americans killing other Americas, family killing family, so of course, this was going to bring out reporters. Yet, when reporters were simply just doing their job, reporting facts to their community about the horrific event, the government attacked the press. Ultimately, throwing them in jail and shutting down their papers. Thus, starting the shaky relationship of the Press and the Government. Which, continued with every war since such as the Spanish-American War, WWI, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and even as far as the War on Iraq.

This type of behavior can violate the third clause of the First Amendment, which states "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of the press." According to the Bill of Rights, this is one of the strongest rights we have as free citizens. So, why wasn't the Government punished for this? Well honestly there is no answer, other then they are the Government. I am not hating on how the Government is run, it is even argued that this type of behavior is what was best for all of society at the time.

This rocky relationship is really interesting when you dive deeper into it, due to the cardinal rule. The cardinal rule in simple terms means that the government gets all its power from the people. Which, is strange considering the government is specifically making the press very mad. This probably isn't smart on the government's part considering the Press is where society gets most of their information from. This type of system is called the chief conduit of public discourse, meaning the Public carries messages to the government and vice versa.

This relationship has continued so far that news terms have been created to describe the government instating fear in people. The chilling effect, it seems like a simple term but is much more complicated when you think about it since it can be opinion based depending on who you ask. However, Wikipedia states the chilling effect as "discouragement of the legitimate exercise of natural and legal rights by the threat of legal sanction" Basically, this is when a group of people is scared to exercise their right of free speech due to fear of what could happen to them under legal law. 

With the Chilling effect, I specifically looked into the period after 9/11, since the United States took many actions to investigate the event such as the Global War on Terror. As I can imagine many Muslim-Americans were being judged, criticized, and blamed due to their race. After looking into the Global War on Terro much more the campaign as did many internet monitoring, since the American intelligence community learned that al-Qaeda used the Internet to plan attacks and communicate with its members. This study focus on Muslim-Americans and the way they used the internet after 9/11. As a result, many Muslim-Americans believe that their internet uses were being monitored, but this led little to change the way they used the internet. You can take a closer look at the study done by clicking here. 

As for the movie, Good Night, and Good Luck it tries into all aspects of this blog. To give a quick summary of the movie Edward R. Murrow a reporter for CBS reported several stories on Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin attempting to expose him as a treat, due to his campaign called McCarthyism. Within the Movie, there were unfair trails about ties to communism, loss of sponsorship, and very opinionated people. Despite all this backlash, the stories still run. This is a very important Movie to show reporters as well as everyday citizens not to back down when they believe in something. The CBS reports sure didn't they still exercised their right of free speech as well as not letting the fear of the Government stop them, otherwise known as the Chilling Effect. As  Edward R. Murrow quoted "journalists are the ones with the responsibility to keep the public informed of the real world, regardless of its unpleasantness."

Source: Good Night, and Good Luck 

Modern Journalist

Christiane Amanpour, One of the Most Outstanding Modern Journalists

Christine's Start:

Graduating as a Journalism major and started working behind the camera as her first job. After a few more jobs she landed one as an assistant at the international assignment desk for CNN. She had to overcome many challenges such as being refused to be but on-air do to her looks. So, she took matters into her own hands and did an at-home covering a story in Iran, while winning the DuPont Award.

Monumental moments for Christine: 

She really became known internationally for her coverage for the Bosnian crisis. The world then turned to her, watching her reports of the first Iraq war with Amanpour. She covered in many trouble stops such as Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia, and Afghanistan. 

Not only did she covered some major events, but she has also interviewed many top world leaders like British Prime minster, Tony Blair, and the French President Jacques Chirac after the 911 attacks. 
Also getting the first interview with King Abdullah of Jordan and other Middle Eastern heads of states such as Mohammad Khatami, President of Iran, and Hosni Mubarak, former President of Egypt.

Awards and Late Work:

Christine has won nine Emmys, many Peabody awards, an Edward R. Murrow award, and recognition from the Libary of American Broadcasting. Along with CNN, she has also worked from CBS News on their TV show as a 60 Minutes reporter. She then went to ABC where she worked as an anchor of This Week after a year Christine was made global affairs anchor of ABC News. Now she has found her way back to her original start at CNN in its international station. Finally, after PBS ties with Charlie Rose and sexual harassment allegations, the organization announced the rebroadcasting of CNN's international show that Christine previously anchored for, now rebranding it Amanpour on PBS, in honor of Rose. 

Sources: https://www.biography.com/media-figure/christiane-amanpour
https://journalism.nyu.edu/about-us/news/the-100-outstanding-journalists-in-the-united-states-in-the-last-100-years/

Journalism During the Civil War

 Throughout the Civil War journalist and newspapers were restricted, arrested, and even shut down completely depending on how they reported the current events.

How Did This Happen in the North?

Journalists both from the North and South were claimed to oppose the draft, discouraged enlistments that were in the Union army, or even criticize the income tax. One of the main events that made headlines was two people from the grand jury drew up against a newspaper that had been critical of the Union. As a result, the newspaper had to stop mailing out publications. 

Further Restrictions on the Northern Press: 

The military regularly asserted journalists and shut down newspapers. More specifically in Ohio, a mob attacked a local newspaper station, following a year later the army arrested him with unspecified charges. Lincon's workers and then even Lincon himself ordered several arrests. Some of the more harsh punishments include:

•  An arrest of an editor from the Freeman’s Journal, held for 11 weeks before eventually releasing him without a trial.

• An authorized military governor to destroy the office of the Sunday Chronicle in Washington.

• Lincoln directly ordered an arrest of the editors of the New York World and seized the paper’s offices. Due to two reporters running a fake proclamation, purportedly signed by the president, which called for a national day of fasting and a massive increase in the number of draftees. 

Then telegraphs became popular and an easier way for reports to get quick information about the war back to their news stations, so of course the Lincoln administration censored telegraph dispatches to and from Washington.

On the Other Side of the Line:

Despite all the efforts that were made by the military and the government soldiers still exchanged newspapers. In fact, Confederate general Robert E. Lee kept up with of movements of Gen. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac by reading Northern newspapers.

Also, Gen. Hardee received a copy of the New York Tribune, which taught him Sherman’s supply ships were gathering at Morehead City, North Carolina. This lead to Sherman’s tactics being foiled and the Union army suffered heavy losses in battle. 

Anti-War Voices: 

The Lincoln administration restricted the ability of active Peace Democrats to speak out against the war, offenses included, “treasonable language,” disloyalty,” threatening Unionists,” and “inducing desertion.” As well as banning any Confederate mottos or images. 

On May 1, 1863,  a former congressman Clement Vallandigham gave a speech at a Democrat Party. He explained during the speech, he “despised it, spit upon it, and trampled it under his feet.”  He then called for the removal of “King Lincoln” and criticized the government for not seeking a peaceful resolution to the war. When this was learned about by the government he was ordered to be put into jail, he was sentenced for the remainder of the war. 

Was Lincoln Right by Limiting Speech/Press?

The conduction is not clear if Lincoln had a right to limit the speech, the way he did. However, the First Amendment specifically prohibits Congress from making laws "abridging freedom of speech” but Lincoln justified his actions restricting speech and the press based on the president’s war powers under the Constitution. 

With all that being said Lincoln spoke in a speech on July 1861: “Must a government of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?” Which states, the survival of the nation took precedence over the foremost constitutional principle.

Source: https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1059/civil-war-u-s#:~:text=

Birth of Modern Journalism

Can you think of a news source that seems like Yellow Journalism? 

I feel like any magazine or celebrity tabloid is very similar to Yellow Journalism. There is a major headline that may not be entirely true or just a flat out lie but tabloids still publish the article to get sales. Not only is Yellow Jouralmism just for getting sales it is also for getting views, for example, but Nancy Grace, who was a former CNN news anchor who had skyrocketing views when she harshly covered a story "Who Killed Caylee Anthony". She said very bitter things about Caylee's mother and when asked if it was "Overboard" her response was still quite harsh and essentially said
definitely not.



















Can you think of a news source that seems like Muckraking?

One of the major modern-day sources that seem like muckraking is Wikileaks. A muckraker is someone who exposes established institutions and leaders as corrupt. Wikileaks did this on their website, they showed the public what is really going behind the senses. They were responsible for posting multiple US military and diplomatic documents. This case is very controversial; because he did not expose a corporation, but an entire government.

Is there a qualitative difference between the two? In other words, is one inherently bad but the other useful or productive? And is there a clear line between the two?

I think this is a very opinion-based question, however for me. There is defiantly a clear line between these two techniques. I would say anyone who is not giving the full truth or flat out lying in a headline just for views or sales is considered bad. Whereas on the other hand if someone is really just trying to help society by exposing corporations that could possibly be doing harm I do not see any bad in that. So, overall Muckraking is much better than Yellow Journalism on the qualitative scale and way more useful.



Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_press
https://themuckraking.weebly.com

Civil War, Clash between Lincoln and the press

There is definitely a difference in newspapers and journalism especially during the start of the war. The Confederacy published articles as quick as possible, he saw something happen then wore it as fast as could be. Whereas the Union wrote their newspapers with detail, then published it. They made sure to really describe how the soldiers were living and where kind of actions they were having to accomplish. This is why the "penny press" eventually started in the north, it was publishing all the information but in a very entertaining way. By doing this would make the readers stay way more involved and really make society understand what was going on in the war during this time. Along with the highly detailed stories the North also had quite a bit more images published then the South. 

Nevertheless, a reporter is a reporter no matter if you are for the Union or if you are for the Confederacy. So both the Confederacy and Union wrote similar to each other by showing all accepts of the war, not just what was happening during the battle. They both reported on things like the hospitals, poor quality of clothing, conduct of leaders, and treatment as well as just the everyday life of the soldiers. In fact, many reports published articles are direct people. 


As for people was were anti-war they expressed their opinions too. The copperhead articles were published in the North and were publications that were opposed to the war, their main argument has they believed the southern states had a right to leave the Union and slavery was a state issue. However, down in the south, very few people dared to not support the  Confederacys fight. This prosed an issue for political and military leaders, fearing the newspapers were revealing too much about one another's tactics and hurt the support of the war from society. 



This then led to the restrictions of the press with several acts and laws coming into play, such as the  Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and putting government agents in telegraph offices to supervise the transmission of dispatches. Studies showed ninety-two newspapers were subjected to some form of restriction, and one hundred and eleven were wrecked by mobs, although the South had way more closing of newspapers then the North both sides were effected and this changed the way the press was viewed. Four years of devesting closing of the South happened while Federal leaders took over the North's newspapers. 

Although this was a tragic time for reports the Civil War also made a very positive and high expectation change for the press, by expecting more timely, entertaining, and detailed articles almost as if they were a magazine.

Source: https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/civil-war-journalism.html

The Muckrakers

History: 

The title Muckraker came about when the president at the time, Theodore Roosevelt, used the term in one of the speeches he gave borrowing a passage from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. The line he used was “the Man with the Muckrake…who could look no way but downward.” Then ever since Muckraker took on favorable connotations of social concern and courageous exposition.

Who are they: 

This group of journalists in the Progressive Ear was known to expose very well known institutions and leaders as corrupt. 

The Muckrakers did this buy writing very detailed pieces of work in certain newspapers or magazines. They provide evidence against these leaders to show the public why they were untrustworthy and corrupt. Most of the institutions were causing political or economical corruption by all the power they had. 

Some Fame: 

Jacob Riis worked as a police reporter for the New York Tribune, New York Evening Post and New York Sun.  He published a series of pieces on slum conditions in the Lower East Side of Manhattan which led to the establishment of the Tenement House Commission. His book "How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York," and "The Children of the Poor," and other later books led to tenements being torn down. 


Florence Kelley was hired to investigate the labor industry in Chicago. She tried to force sweatshop owners to improve conditions but never won any of her lawsuits. She then published "Hull-House Maps and Papers," and "Modern Industry in Relation to the Family, Health, Education, Morality." These books showed the reality of child-labor sweatshops and working conditions for children and women. Her work then helped create the 10-hour workday and establish minimum wages, but her greatest accomplishment was the "Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act," which included health care funds to reduce maternal and infant mortality.


Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/muckraker

The Partisan Press

I found this political cartoon online and I feel like it perfectly describes the partisan press and still to this day. I feel that the old system was a worse way to do it because society is only going to consume news from who they want to. Whereas in today's society at least the public is attempting to get both views on a topic, or even just the facts then they can decide their opinion.

I do feel there is a very strong parallel between the press today and the Partisan Press Era although it may not always be very obvious. If the press today was not to have an openly partisan press, then it could be looked at by the public as one of the better news sources due to the fact the public normally wants to look at news stories without a particular view and just straight facts.

However, if they are openly partisan news sources I feel they would not get as many views because they are openly biased with one side and I think the public would claim that they don't want to hear from just a particular party. Yet, if they were secretive about it I do feel like they would get a certain amount of views like the article mentioned because of the viewers like what they hear.

Sources: http://www.gnovisjournal.org/2011/11/17/a-return-to-partisan-press/
https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/archive/cartoons-and-cartoonists/1914_ca_object_representations_media_109895_original/