J610 U.S. Journalism History: Partisanship, Advocacy, Objectivity       

 

CRN 26483 Winter Quarter 2006  Last Updated 2-13-09

 

Class Meets: WF 12-1:20 p.m. in 307 Allen Hall.

 

Instructor: Steve Ponder.  Office: 203 Allen Hall. Hours: after class and by appointment. Telephones: 822-3248, 346-3514. E-mail: sponder@uoregon.edu

Faculty profile: http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/faculty-staff/sponder  Curriculum vitae: http://www.uoregon.edu/~sponder/j619/VitaeSOJC.htm

 

          Course description: The seminar is intended to introduce graduate students to historical explorations of shifting paradigms in U.S. journalism. Mainstream journalism in much of the twentieth century was dominated by the paradigm of objectivity, as were historical interpretations of journalism history. Much of this historical work celebrated the rise of detached “objectivity” and dismissed other approaches in the past, such as partisanship, as the “dark ages.” At the same time, however, standard journalism history textbooks featured passionate journalism, such as resistance to British colonial rule and support for revolution, advocacy against slavery or for women’s rights, vigorous muckraking of monopolistic trusts, opposition to wartime censorship and exposing abuses of government power. The result often is a contradictory view of the multiple truths inherent in the history of U.S. journalism.

 

          Assignments: Readings in the seminar are intended to explore the historiography of objectivity and three other influential journalistic paradigms since the American Revolution, including partisanship and institutionalism, advocacy, and Progressive reform (muckraking). Students will read a minimum of four works, at least one from each topical area, and write short (2-3 page) analytical reviews. The reviews must identify and analyze the central argument of each work: its thesis, assumptions, selection of evidence, conclusions and possible use in a dissertation or thesis. Students will be called upon in class to discuss their findings.The written reviews are due at the beginning of class on Fridays: January 16 and 30 and February 13.

 

          Review essay: In addition to the short reviews, students will also propose, research and write a longer (20-25 page) review essay of historical literature that addresses journalistic paradigms in the past and suggests how that literature may inform contemporary research. Books and articles for the review essay may be taken from class assignments, from reading lists supplied by the instructor, and from library searches. Additional readings from a related research interest are welcome as long as they are consistent with the overall themes of the course.

A proposed research question, explanation and potential reading list (2-3 pages) is due in class on Friday, February 6.  A fully developed research question, explanation, expanded reading list and outline (3-5 pages) is due in class on Friday, February 27. The completed essay will be due at the scheduled final examination period for the course, 10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18. Additional instructions for the writing assignments will be available in class and on the website.

 

          General schedule and required readings: During weeks 1-4, the class will read and discuss together two required books, one exploring partisanship and institutionalism, the other exploring the rise of objectivity as a paradigm, and write analytical reviews of each. The required books, available at the UO Bookstore and on reserve at the Knight Library, are:

 

Timothy E. Cook, Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2005 <1998>)

 

          David T. Z. Mindich, Just the Facts: How ‘Objectivity’ Came to Define American Journalism (New York University Press, 2000)

 

          During weeks 4-8, students will select individually books or articles on advocacy and progressive reform for reading, discussion and review from the supplemental lists supplied by the instructor. Other relevant titles will be considered, subject to instructor approval.

Student Responsibilities and Requirements:  Students are required to bring two written thought-provoking questions about the readings to each class session. They will be collected at the start of class to begin the discussions. You are expected to be attentive in class, to complete the writing assignments to the best of your ability, and to contribute civilly to discussions on topics related to the course.

          Academic Integrity  Students are expected to their own work and properly credit the work of others. Plagiarizing and/or cheating will not be tolerated. Students who do so will fail the course. You should familiarize yourself with the UO Student Conduct Code:  http://studentlife.uoregon.edu/programs/student_judi_affairs/index.htm, especially the section on plagiarism, and the Knight Library plagiarism guide: http://libweb.uoregon.edu/guides/plagiarism/students/index.html.

 

          Grades:  Students are expected to complete all four short papers that critically review assigned readings, propose and complete the review essay, and to contribute written questions and verbal comments to class discussions. The essay will account for 40% of the grade; the reviews 40% and class participation 20%.

 

          Students with disabilities: Students needing accommodation because of a documented disability need to contact the instructor at the beginning of the term.

           

Weekly Class Schedule

(Subject to change by electronic or in-class announcement)

 

Week 1. (January 7, 9) Historical approaches to journalistic paradigms. 

          Required reading: Cook, Governing with the News, Introduction, Parts I and II (pp. 1-115, hardback edition).

 

Week 2. (January 14, 16) Partisanship and institutionalism

          Required reading: Cook, Governing with the News, Part III and Conclusion (116-192).

          Writing assignment:  Analytical review of Cook due at the beginning of class on Friday, January 16.

 

Week 3. (January 21, 23) The rise of objectivity

          Required reading: Mindich, Just the Facts,  Introduction, Chapters 1-3 (pp. 1-94 , hardback edition).

 

Week 4. (January 28, 30)

          Required reading: Mindich, Chapters 4-5, Conclusion (95-143).

          Writing assignment: Analytical review of Mindich due at beginning of class on Friday, January 30.

 

Week 5. (February 4, 6) History of advocacy journalism

          Required reading:  One selection from Supplemental Reading List. No. 3.

          Writing assignment: Review essay proposal due at the beginning of class on Friday, February 6.

 

Week 6. (February 11, 13)

          Required reading: Finish selection.

          Writing assignment: Analytical review No. 3 due at the beginning of class on February 13.

 

Week 7. (February 18, 20) Mucraking and Progressive reform

          Required reading: One selection from Supplemental Reading List No. 4.

         

Week 8. (February 25, 27)

          Required reading:  Complete selection.

          Writing assignment:  Developed research proposal, outline and reading list due at the beginning of class on Friday, February 27.

 

Week 9. (March 4, 6)

          Continue discussions.

 

Week 10. (March 11, 13)

          Discussion of essays, readings, historiography of journalism approaches.

 

Week 11. (Completed final essay due by scheduled final examination, 10:15-12:15 on Wednesday, March 18)

 

Supplemental reading lists

 

          Supplemental reading list 1: Partisanship and institutionalism

          Robin Andersen, A Century of Media, a Century of War (Lang, 2006)

          Gerald J. Baldasty, “The Press and Politics in the Age of Jackson,” Journalism Monographs 89 (1984)

Douglass Cater, The Fourth Branch of Government (Vintage, 1959)

Carolyn S. Dyer, “Political Patronage of the Wisconsin Press, 1849-1860: New Perspectives on the Economics of Patronage,” Journalism Monographs 109 (1989)

Karla Gower, Public Relations and the Press: The Troubled Embrace (Northwestern, 2007)

          Daniel C. Hallin, The 'Uncensored War': The Media and Vietnam (Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press, 1989)

          Philip Knightly, The First Casualty (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1975)

Jerry W. Knudson, Jefferson and the Press: Crucible of Liberty (South Carolina, 2006)

          Mel Laracy, Presidents and the People: The Partisan Story of Going Public (Texas A&M, 2002)

          Michael J. McGerr, The Decline of Popular Politics (Oxford, 1986)

Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism (New York: Macmillan, 1941).

Stephen Ponder, Managing the Press: Origins of the Media Presidency, 1897-1933 (St. Martins/Palgrave, 1998/2001)

Stephen Ponder, "Partisan Reporting and Presidential Campaigning: Gilson Gardner and E.W. Scripps in the Election of 1912," Journalism History 17 (1990): 3-12. (Published 1997).

Donald A. Ritchie, “The Loyalty of the Senate: Washington Correspendents in the Progressive Era,” The Historian 50 (1989): 574-91.

Donald A. Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents (Harvard, 1991)

          Donald A. Ritchie, Reporting on Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps (Oxford, 2006)

Culver H. Smith, The Press, Politics and Patronage: The American Government’s Use of Newspapers (Georgia, 1977)

Jeffery A. Smith, Printers and Press Freedom: The Ideology of Early American Journalism (Oxford, 1988)

Michael Socolow, “’News is a Weapon’: Domestic Radio Propaganda and Broadcast Journalism in America, 1939-1944,” American Journalism 24(3), 109-131.

Mark Wahlgren Summers, The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878 (North Carolina, 1994)

Sheila Webb, “An American Journalist in the Role of Partisan: Dickey Chapelle”s Coverage of the Algerian War,” American Journalism 22(2), 111-134.

          Betty Houchen Winfield, FDR and the News Media (Illinois, 1990)

                  

Supplemental reading list 2: Objectivity

Gerald J. Baldasty, The Commercialization of News in the Nineteenth Century (Wisconsin, 1992)

Joseph W. Campbell, The Year that Defined American Journalism: 1897 and the Clash of Paradigms (Routledge, 2006)

Hazel Dicken-Garcia, Journalistic Standards in Nineteenth-century America (Wisconsin, 1989)

Richard Kaplan,  Politics and the American Press: The Rise of Objectivity, 1865-1920  (Cambridge, 2002)

Steven Knowlton and Karen L. Freeman, ed., Fair and Balanced: A History of Journalistic Objectivity (Vision, 2005)

Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity Question’ and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge, 1988)

Richard Reeb Jr., Taking Journalism Seriously: ‘Objectivity’ as a Partisan Cause (Univeristy Press of America, 1989)

Jeffrey Rutenbeck, “The Stagnation and Decline of Partisan Journalism in Late Nineteenth-century America,” American Journalism 10 (Nos. 1-2, Winter-Spring 1993): 38-60.

Jeffrey Rutenbeck, “The Triumph of News over Ideas in American Journalism: The Trade Journal Debate, 1872-1915,” Journal of Communication Inquiry 18, no. 1 (1994): 63-79.

          Dan Schiller, Objectivity and the News: The Public and the Rise of Commercial Journalism (Pennsylvania, 1981)

Michael Schudson, Discovering the News (Basic Books, 1981)

Michael Schudson, “The Politics of Narrative Form: The Emergence of News Conventions in Print and Television,” Daedulus III, no. 4 (1981): 97-112.

          Susan Thompson, The Penny Press: The Origins of the Modern News Media, 1833-1861 (Vision Press, 2004).

 

          Supplemental reading list 3: Advocacy

          Jacqueline Bacon, Freedom’s Journal: The First African-American Newspaper (2007)

Bernard Bailyn, The Press and the American Revolution (American Antiquarian Society, 1980)

T. Gregory Garvey, Creating the Culture of Reform in Antebellum America (Georgia, 2006)

Frankie Hutton, The Early Black Press in America, 1827-1860 (Greenwood, 1993)

Lauren Kessler, The Dissident Press: Alternative Journalism in American

    History (Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage, 1984)

Lauren Kessler, “A Siege of the Citadels: Search for a Public Forum for the ideas of Oregon woman suffrage,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 84:2 (Summer 1983): 117

          Kimberly Ann Mangun, “Beatrice Morrow Cannady and The Advocate: building and defending Oregon’s African-American community, 1912-1933,” School of Journalism and Communication dissertation, 2005. See also Mangun, “The (Oregon) Advocate: Boosting the Race and Portland, Too,” American Journalism 23(1), 7-34.

Lynn Masel-Walters, "For the 'Poor Mute Mothers?' Margaret Sanger and the Woman Rebel," Journalism History 11:1-2 (Spring/Summer 1984), 3-10, 37.

Linda O. Murray, To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells (Oxford, 1998)

Paula Giddings, Ida - A Sword Among Lions: Ida B. Wells and the Campaign Against Lynching (Armistead, 2008). See also A Passion for Justice (Videotape 01247, Knight Library.)

Robert E. Hertzein, Henry R. Luce, Time and the American Crusade in Asia (Cambridge, 2005)

Matthew Peeples, “Creating Political Authority: The Role of the Antebellum Black Press in the Political Mobilization and Empowerment of African Americans,” Journalism History 34:2 (Summer 2008): 87-97.

Lana F. Rakow and Cheris Kramarae, The Revolution in Words: Righting Women, 1868-1871 (1990)

          Nancy L. Roberts, "Journalism for Justice: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker," Journalism History 10:1-2 (Spring-Summer 1983)

          Ann Russo and Cheris Kramarae, eds., The Radical Women's Press of the 1850s (1991)

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764-1776 (Knopf, 1958).

Elliott Shore, Ken Fones-Wolf and James P. Dankey, The German-American Radical Press: The Shaping of a Left Political Culture, 1850-1940 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992)

Martha M. Solomon, ed., A Voice of Their Own: The Woman Suffrage Press, 1840-1910 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1991)

Linda Steiner, "Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals," American Journalism, (Summer 1983), 1-15.

Patrick S. Washburn, The African-American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (Northwestern, 2006)

Robert C. Williams, Horace Greeley: Champion of American Freedom (Hew York, 2006)

 

          Supplemental reading list 4: Progressive reformism and muckraking

          James L. Aucoin, The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism (Missouri, 2005)

          James H. Cassedy, “Muckraking and Medicine: Samuel Hopkins Adams,” American Quarterly 16 (1964): 85-99.

          David M. Chalmers, The Social and Political Ideas of the Muckrakers (1964)

          John G. Clark, “Reform Currents in the Polite Monthly Magazines, 1880-1900,” Mid-America 47 (1965): 3-23.

          Kathleen L. Endres, “Women and the ‘Larger Household:’ The ‘Big Six’ and Muckraking,” American Journalism 14: 3-4 (1997): 262-82.

          Mark Feldstein, “A Muckraking Model: Investigative Reporting Cycles in American History,” Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics 11:2 (2006): 77-102.

Frank E. Fee Jr., “Reconnecting with the Body Politic: Toward Disconnecting Muckraking and Public Journalists,” American Journalism 22(3) 77-102

Louis Filler, Crusaders for American Liberalism (Collier, 1961), other Filler works on muckraking.

Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What’s News (25th anniversary revised edition (Northwestern, 2004<1980>)

Eric F. Goldman, Rendezvous With Destiny: A History of Modern American Reform (Knopf, 1952)

Richard Hofstadter, The Age of Reform (Vintage, 1995)

Thomas C. Leonard, The Power of the Press: The Birth of American Political Reporting (Oxford, 1986)

Joseph P. McKerns, "The Limits of Progressive Journalism History," Journalism History 4 (Autumn 1977), 88-92.

Robert Miraldo, Muckraking and Objectivity: Journalism’s Colliding Traditions (Greenwood, 1980)

David Paul Nord, Newspapers and New Politics: Midwestern Municipal Reform, 1890-1900 (1981)

          Robert D. Reynolds, “The 1906 Campaign to Sway Muckraking Periodicals,” Journalism Quarterly 56 (1979: 513-20.

Judith Serrin, Muckraking! (New Press, 2002)

John Semonche, “The American Magazine of 1906-1915: Principle versus Profit,” Journalism Quarterly 40 (1963): 36-44.

William David Sloan, “The Muckrakers, 1901-1917: Defenders of Conservatism or Liberal Reformers,” in Perspectives on Mass Communication History (1991),271-82.

Lincoln Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens (Heyday, 2006). Reprint with introduction by Thomas C. Leonard.

Salme H. Steinberg. Reformer in the Marketplace: Edward W. Bok and the Ladies Home Journal (1979)

Harry Stein, "American Muckrakers and Muckraking: The 50-Year Scholarship," Journalism Quarterly 56:1 (Spring 1979), 9-17.

Amos Tevelow, “Sensationalism, Objectivity and Reform in Turn-of-century America,” in Carol A. Stabile, ed., Turning the Century: Essays in Media and Cultural Studies (Westview, 2000).

Brian Thornton, “Muckraking Journalists and Their Readers: Perspectives of Professionalism,” Journalism History 21 (1995): 29-41.

Bonnie Zochelson, Rediscovering Jacob Riis: Exposure journalism and photography in turn-of-the-century New York (New Press, 2007)

          Dale E. Zacher, The Scripps Newspapers Go To War: 1914-18 (Illinois, 2008)

 

Research tools in journalism history

          Knight Library research guide for journalism history: http://libweb.uoregon.edu/guides/journalism/j387/researchpaper.html

          Primary U.S. history search index: America: History and Life (online through Knight Library One Search)

          Primary research journals: American Journalism, Journalism History.

Reference works

Encyclopedia of American Journalism, Stephen Vaughn, ed. (Routledge, 2007)

History of the Mass Media in the United States: An Encyclopedia, Margaret Blanchard, ed. (Routledge, 1998)

          Guides on journalism history

Margaret A. Blanchard, “The ossification of Journalism History: A Challenge for the Twenty-first Century,”  Journalism History 25:3 (Autumn 1999): 107-112.

Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff, The Modern Researcher, latest edition. (Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich).

          James Davidson and Mark Lytle, After the Fact: The Art of Historical Detection (New York: Random House, 1986).

          Lauren Kessler, “Toward a People’s Press History,” Clio among the Media 18:2 (January 1986): 1, 3.

          Floyd McKay, Reporting the Pacific Northwest: An annotated bibliography of journalism history in Orego and Washington (Oregon Historical Society, 2004).

          David Paul Nord, “A Plea for Journalism History,” Journalism History 15:1 (Spring 1988): 8-14.

          Michael Schudson, “Toward a Troubleshooting Manual for Journalism History,” Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 74, no. 3 (1997): 463-76.

          Robert Jones Shafer, ed., Guide to Historical Method, latest edition.

James D. Startt and William David Sloan, Historical Methods in Mass Communication (Erlbaum, 1989 and revised edition.)

Frequently used undergraduate textbooks

          Michael Emery, Edwin Emery and Nancy L. Roberts, The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media, 9th ed. (Allyn and Bacon, 1997).

Jean Folkerts, Dwight Tweeter and Ed Caudill, Voices of a Nation: A History of Mass Media in the United States, 5th ed. (Allyn and Bacon, 2008)

William David Sloan, The Media in America: A History, 7th ed. (Vision Press, 2008)

          Scholarly organizations and conferences

          American Journalism Historians Association http://ajhaonline.org/ Meets October 7-10, 2009, in Birmingham, AL. Paper submission deadline: May 15.

          History Division, Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication http://www.utc.edu/Outreach/AEJMC-HistoryDivision/ Meets August 5-8, Boston, MA. Paper submission deadline: April 1.

          Social Science History Association http://ssha.org Meets November 12-15, Long Beach, CA. Paper proposal submission deadline is March 1.