Journalism during the ACW

USS ALASKA

USS ALASKA

Major
Joined
Mar 16, 2016
The Birth of Modern Journalism & The War Between the States
Simon Patrick Robert Vodrey
Master of Arts
Communication
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario
©2011 Simon Patrick Robert Vodrey

Abstract
This thesis examines the implications that the 1861-1865 American Civil War and its newspaper coverage held for the development of modern American journalism. By using a content analysis of four popular newspapers of the day, it will demonstrate how many journalistic practices appeared and evolved over the course of the war and the subsequent Reconstruction Period. This thesis maintains that the press' increasing use of the electric telegraph to gather and relay news played a role in changing the face of communication by separating it from transportation, by eroding the balance between space and time as well as by altering the very format of antebellum journalism on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.


Because of copyright, please use above link.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 
USS ALASKA said:
The Birth of Modern Journalism & The War Between the States
Simon Patrick Robert Vodrey
Master of Arts
Communication
Carleton University
Ottawa, Ontario
©2011 Simon Patrick Robert Vodrey

Abstract
This thesis examines the implications that the 1861-1865 American Civil War and its newspaper coverage held for the development of modern American journalism. By using a content analysis of four popular newspapers of the day, it will demonstrate how many journalistic practices appeared and evolved over the course of the war and the subsequent Reconstruction Period. This thesis maintains that the press' increasing use of the electric telegraph to gather and relay news played a role in changing the face of communication by separating it from transportation, by eroding the balance between space and time as well as by altering the very format of antebellum journalism on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line.


Because of copyright, please use above link.

Cheers,
USS ALASKA
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Good find. We need more articles on this subject.
 
Belfoured said:
I have the basic ones - any recs?
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Fighting Words: An Illustrated History of Newspaper Accounts of the Civil War, by Andrew S. Coopersmith.

Lincoln And The Press, by Robert S. Harper. (A rather old book, copyright 1951.)

Spectator Of America, by Edward Dicey, Edited by Herbert Mitgang.

Lincoln's Wrath: Fierce Mobs, Brilliant Scoundrels and a President's Mission to Destry the Press, by Jeffrey Manber & Neil Dahlstrom.
 
My own impressions of limited read newspaper reports during the CW are that the content is largely unreliable due to the imperfections of information transmission in the era, as well as the partisanship of reporting. (Lots of such reported information needs to be corroborated).

This finding is not surprising, if one also considers that the reporters/journalists were rarely actually present as direct eyewitnesses at these reported events.
 
Last edited:
A new one for me - from Brno, Czech Republic...

Masaryk University
Faculty of Education
Department of English Language and Literature
Bachelor Thesis
Brno 2014

The Role of Media in the American Civil War
Kristina Paayyyiiaadová

Annotation
This thesis examines the power of information in the American Civil War. People, whose grandfathers were fighting side by side in the War of Independence, were suddenly mortal enemies willing to lay down lives for their cause. The thesis illustrates the period through the eyes of chosen newspapers. The aim of this work is to study the general mood in both Southern and Northern section, to catch the attitude of the contemporary newspapers and finally what the exact information provided to people during the Civil war were. The American Civil War was the first conflict, where the people were informed fast about the progress of the war, owing to the newly-adopted telegraph and the newspapers boom. As I find writing about tense situations more intriguing, I chose to describe what the newspapers reported to their readers on selected events. The goal of this thesis is to illustrate the general mood in the divided nation from both Southern and Northern point of view through the eyes of the contemporary newspapers.


Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

Attachments

Nathan Stuart said:
My own impressions of limited read newspaper reports during the CW are that the content is largely unreliable due to the imperfections of information transmission in the era, as well as the partisanship of reporting. (Lots of such reported information needs to be corroborated).

This finding is not surprising, if one also considers that the reporters/journalists were rarely actually present as direct eyewitnesses at these reported events.
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Those are both valid points. How and from whom a reporter got information in the first place was all over the place in terms of reliability. And, as you indicate, many newspapers at the time were affiliated with one political party or another. That could also occasionally cross over to relations with those in the military. A notorious example is the 1862 correspondence between Fitz John Porter and the editor of the vehemently anti-administration New York World, Manton Marble. Porter's own sympathetic biographer has described the correspondence with the odd label "seditious-sounding".
 
huskerblitz said:
Unionblue hit a couple I have. I'd have to look to see what else I have on that subject, but a long day of trying to keep up with my 3-year-old granddaughter. Im beat tonight.
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I understand. We keep our 5 and 8 year old grandkids after school until our son and daughter-in-law get home from work 4 days every week!
 
If your library card allows you access to ProQuest, you may be able to read Joseph Medill and the Chicago Tribune During the Civil War Period, a doctoral dissertation for a PhD in History at the University of Chicago by Tracy Elmer Strevey in 1930. Length is 205 pages. Copies are also listed in WorldCat as being held by a few academic libraries, but they may or may not circulate. Your interlibrary loan librarian can make inquiries for you.
 
"If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast." - William Tecumseh Sherman

The "Unfettered Press"
The Unresolved Tension between Warriors and Journalists during the Civil War
Randy D. Ferryman

At stake was the definition of the right balance between the competing constitutional principles of protecting lives and safeguarding individual liberty. By 18 February 1863, Union Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman was fed up with unauthorized press disclosures of his operations, writing in a letter to his brother, US Senator John Sherman, that "with the press, unfettered as now, we are defeated until the end of time." General Sherman wanted enforcement of federal instructions to newspapers not to disclose sensitive military information, which the press firmly believed was in its interest and the nation's to print. From the beginning of the war until its conclusion, the US government and the northern press were unable to resolve several disputes over press disclosures and news controls. At stake was the definition of the right balance between the competing constitutional principles of protecting lives while safeguarding individual liberty.


Cheers,
USS ALASKA
 

Attachments

The 19th Ohio was fortunate to have two embedded reporters actually in the regiment. They regularly sent stories/articles/reports to the Stark County Republican newspaper.

Charles S. burr, "Charley Burr" or just "Burr" was a member of company B of the 19th. His stories began at Camp Ford in Alliance Ohio in September, 1861. He was discharged a year later with a "disability." He seems to continue to send stories to Canton, Ohio with the freedom as an embedded reporter than that of an enlisted man. His stories ended in the summer of 1863.

Taking Burr's position was "J. B. Co. I." John Blum of Company I was an active member of the regiment throughout its existence from Camp Ford to the muster out in Texas. in 1865. He eventually became involved in the publishing business in Dayton, Ohio.

Question: could we expect to have more information available from regiments with a higher level of education, more literate to send home stories to local papers, letters home and diaries. . . I would expect so. That plus a long service time presents a good story.
 
huskerblitz said:
So did the 22nd Kentucky, a former editor was a regimental Lieutenant and routinely sent back dispatches to be published in Louisville. He eventually became the night editor for the New York Herald.
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An interesting form of "embedding" was the placing of a reporter on his staff by generals. Rosecrans did it twice with reporters from Cincinnati newspapers - Whitelaw Reid of the Cincinnati Gazette in 1861 and William Bickham of the Cincinnati Commercial in 1862 (whose editor Murat Halstead had connections with Salmon P. Chase). It couldn't hurt - in 1863 Bickham churned out a hagiographic account of Rosey at Stones River.
 
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