Politics and the American Press
The Rise of Objectivity, 1865–1920

Politics and the American Press takes a fresh look at the origins of modern journalism's ideals and political practices.

Richard L. Kaplan (Author)

9780521006026, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 February 2002

234 pages, 4 tables
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.37 kg

"What begins as a perfectly straightforward, and exceedingly well-done, analysis of the political history of the press and parties in the Gilded and Progressive eras ends as a polemic for public journalism...the early chapters of the book do provide an excellent examination of the partisan press system after the Civil War. Further, this work may have considerable relevance for those of us living in America today." -Debra R. Van Tuyll, Augusta State University, H-NET

Politics and the American Press takes a fresh look at the origins of modern journalism's ideals and political practices. In particular, Richard Kaplan addresses the professional ethic of political independence and objectivity widely adopted by the US press. He shows how this philosophy emerged from a strikingly different ethic of avid formal partisanship in the early twentieth century. The book also provides fresh insights into the economics of journalism and uses business papers and personal letters of publishers to explore the influence of competition, advertising, and an explosion in readership on the market strategies of the press. Kaplan documents the changes in political content of the press by a systematic content analysis of newspaper news and editorials over a span of 55 years. The book concludes by exploring the question of what should be the appropriate political role and professional ethics of journalists in a modern democracy.

Introduction
1. Partisan news in the early reconstruction era: African-Americans in the vortex of political publicity
2. Economic engines of partisanship
3. Rituals of partisanship: American journalism in the gilded age
4. The two revolutions in urban newspaper economics, 1873 and 1888
5. 1896 and the political revolution in Detroit journalism
Conclusion
Methodological appendix.

Subject Areas: Media studies [JFD]