Believe it or not, news reporting is better today

“By allowing the general public unprecedented access to the original papers, this book lets us learn firsthand what many modern historians claim: Without newspapers, there would have been no American Revolution.”

That claim was made by writer Todd Andrlik during a February 2015 interview about his then latest book: “Reporting the Revolutionary War: Before it was History, it was News.” The role of newspapers, and by extension the news media, in history is sometimes overlooked. Yet newspapers, and the ability to publish, played a large part in the founding of our nation, and its subsequent development.

So much so, that over 13 years after we declared our independence on July 4, 1776, Congress, acting in its new role through our second attempt at a national constitution, sent an amendment to that constitution to the states guaranteeing a right to publish unfettered by governmental interference.

At the beginning “freedom of the press” was just that — the printing press. The right to print news and opinion without prior approval, or any approval at all.

As might be expected, newspapers during the Revolutionary period in this country were rudimentary compared to what they are today, or even to what they would become later. Research indicates they were small, generally around four pages with circulation averaging 600, published weekly and contained what news the publisher and his assistants could gather of local, national and even world events.

This news came from a variety of sources such as shipping manifests, other newspapers, ship’s captains and crew who had been overseas, travelers to other parts of the young country, etc. There were no reporters, no wire services, no streaming — that all comes later.

In fact, today’s news readers would likely have been terrified to pick up one of these because they contained no pretty pictures or colorful information graphics to dilute the mind —you had to actually focus and read. Yikes!

Over time, technology worked to transform this sharing of information — turning the physical aspect of “the press” into the more conceptual idea of a group of people actively engaged in collecting, recording and transmitting news and opinion. The telegraph allowed for nearly instantaneous transmission of news from distance locales, photography added a compelling visual element in telling the story such as during the Civil War.

Advances in printing enabled more copies to be produced quicker. News transmission became more rapid and more widespread, eventually leading to today’s circumstances where news transmission happens all the time, and by just about anyone. The different forms of transmission have also produced the concept of “news media,” something that would be very foreign to our Founding Father’s understanding of news.

In many ways, technology transformed not only how news was gathered and transmitted, but also how it was produced. It created the position of reporter, someone who not only gathered news but also could verify facts through personal contact and even eyewitness to events.

But even with facts, news could, and still can, be subjective. During the American Revolution, some newspapers were loyal and sympathetic to the revolutionaries, while others held similar allegiances to the British Crown. They subsequently reported their “news” as such, and worked through their publisher’s opinions to fan the flames either of revolution or loyalty.

In his book, “I Go with Custer,” author Sandy Barnard notes how some news organizations in the late 19th century would create separate papers for each political party during elections. There would be a “Democratic Leader” for Democrats and a “Republican Reporter” for Republicans. Sometimes, it was difficult to separate news from opinion in either.

As we celebrate our independence this July 4, it’s important that we reflect back on where we started in order to gauge how far we’ve come. This is particularly true with our modern news media, which if you take the time to learn, is much better informed and in most cases much more resolved to present facts as facts rather than opinion as facts than our predecessors.

That’s important, because sometimes those facts are unpleasant.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.