Introduction

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            Over the course of history, the populations of the world had to get their information from somewhere. As with human nature, when information passes, it changes slightly. It’s like the game telephone. You say one thing to one person who passes it to the next, and when it gets back to you, the word you started with has changed into a completely different one. This is a common occurrence with story-telling. Everyone will tell their own version. It just so happens, that truth can be mangled by someone else’s perspective just as much as a story. This is what we call media.

(One of the most famous men in televised news broadcasting, Walter Cronkite, was all about keeping the truth in the media and being objective.)¹

A Brief History of Media

            Since the evolution of man some form of media has been used as man’s way of communicating with one another the events going on around them. Whether it was grunts and groans, smoke signals, or the pony express, everyone had to communicate, and since everyone has an opinion, it was inevitable that some facts would be skewed to some people's opinions. Thus the media was born. It has been a way to transfer ideas and persuade others to beliefs. More importantly, it was a way to communicate information.  

The media has always been a strong force in America’s history, beginning with the first settlers and the first publication in the New World: Benjamin Harris's Publick Occurrences both Foreighn and Domestick. 1 In later years, as the circulation of newspapers became a bit more widespread, journalists used their publications not only to spread information to the public, but to also voice their opinions through sometimes long, opinionated editorials. One such publication even had an extra page in the back for readers to write their own opinions, and then pass along the paper to their neighbors. 1 Benjamin Franklin, who spent his life working in the media, amongst other things, wrote long editorials under the name of Silence Dogood. Thomas Paine was famous for his pamphlets, and many argue his pamphlet, Common Sense, is what drove the colonists to strive for Independence.

In later years, journalism became more popular, especially late in the 19^th century when factory lines allowed for quicker production, and news was spread fast amongst the wide and expansive United States. However, with the rise of the popularity of newspapers came the rise of muckracking and yellow journalism, which will be discussed further in this chapter. This gave rise to a new sort of sensationalism: in order to make more sales, you had to have more exciting stories, whether or not the facts were entirely certain or true. Because of William Randolph Hearst’s coverage of the story blaming Spain for the sinking of the USS Maine, the United States went to war with Spain, despite neglecting to have a thorough investigation as to what caused the explosion that sunk the Maine.

During both World Wars, the government used the media as a tool to gain favor and support for the war efforts using propaganda promoting patriotism and distrust towards the enemy. The government used the media to its advantage by showering  the radio and public streets with messages of approval and patriotism. It sent out posters to promote secrecy and constant vigilance against spies. For wars to come the same methods were used, especially during the Red Scare of the 1950s. However, during the Vietnam War, a time when the country was already becoming distrustful of its government, the media turned away from promoting the war and showed the footage of the tragedies occurring abroad. After this event and Watergate, the media turned into a more cynical, distrustful power, seeking to bring to light the government’s actions to an otherwise unaware public. This gave rise to investigative journalism, and other methods that will be covered in this chapter.

And with the rise of technology, the media has expanded further. Now on television there are more than just the original three networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS. There are now dozens of channels dedicated to telling some sort of news: The Weather Channel, ESPN, and C-SPAN all cover specific areas of interest, allowing the public to pick what they want to learn rather than sitting through hours of needless information. With the rise of the Internet, people can now share their own versions of the news through blogs, and can find specific news sites that cater to any specific interest. If you have a Google account, you can even edit your homepage to only give you the headlines for the things in which you have interest.

The news has become a massive entity, as well as an interactive one.  Now, rather than simply being a way to learn about the goings on in the government, the economy, or the country, it has also become a way to interact with it, to actively participate in the world around you.  

(A World War II propaganda poster about the Nazis and their spies. Pretty creepy, huh? Kind of looks like a Storm Trooper or Darth Vader a la the Empire, right? These creepy posters are where George Lucas got his inspiration.)²

              The media has been a lot of things: a business, a political tool, a way to get the people to participate in government, and a way for the government to communicate with the people. It has been accused of brainwashing, of lying, of snooping, of gossip, of slander, of being plain boring, but it will never go out of style. For as long as there are people interacting with one another, someone will have to tell the story of what happened. And that's where the media comes in. 

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