Originally posted June 13, 2003
To understand where we are today, we have to look back at the long road that brought about modern concepts of journalism, media, and entertainment. In many ways, this is a history of technology with a bit of people thrown in for spice.
In a day and age where instant communication is the norm, it is hard to remember that it was not that long ago that not every home had a phone, a television, and that not every television was colour. Most of today’s high school students have never lived in a world without the internet, cable or satellite television, phones, or even cell phones. Despite some nasty accusations, I am not as old as dirt and I do remember the days when not every home or location had a phone; when there was not cable television and the pain in the rump it was to re-orient the outside antenna to pull in signals from different areas (and the wonder that was an electric rotator that went on the mast), when quite a few televisions were not colour, and communications satellites began to revolutionize things.
Given the changes in a single lifetime, much less the many millions of lives that take things as they are for granted, it is hard to conceive of a time when news was strictly local, and even that took time to get around. In ancient of days, long before the rise of Athens and the true flowering of Western thought, news traveled my merchants, by soldiers, and others who had to take to the road. Travelers were sought after when they arrived, because they could and would tell the news of far away places, sometimes more than twenty miles away.
There were no presses, and clay tablets, papyrus, and even stone contained the writing of the day. Specialists in writing, scribes, were the earliest gatekeepers of the recording of information, deciding what was worthy to go on the limited resources of the day. As a result, most news and entertainment were oral and traveled person to person. To get an idea of how reliable such is, simply play the kids game rumor. You get the picture.
Nor was this the only problem. Many people relished being the center of attention, of being plied with food and drink so as to tell the news and tales of far away places. This, in turn, lead to bards. These were traveling entertainers who sang, danced, recited poetry or stories, and otherwise entertained the masses – such as they were – along the way. Bards had entry into great halls and the lowliest hut, but knew that they must entertain to earn their keep. So, they told great stories of great deeds, and news often was embellished to keep attention and ensure good earnings for the night or stay.
Written histories did exist, but they were limited in amount because the cost of the materials was quite high. Therefore, they tended to be for official writings of one sort or another, and as a result represented the “official government take” on events. Since this usually involved justification of things or the official version of events, it is safe to say that they were often as embellished as the bardic tales.
As the ability to make paper grew, so to did written documents. They were still expensive, and very limited because there the photocopiers of the day were teams of scribes, later monks, who copied documents by hand. Again, the game of rumor can show you how perfect some of those copies might be… The result was, that news and entertainment continued to be a largely oral tradition.
Entertainment itself deserves a bit more explanation. There were, of course, theatres and great plays and shows were put on in them. These were, by and large, rare events and limited primarily to large towns. Even traveling shows tended to go to larger cities rather than small villages and such. Within large towns, there was a need for more regular entertainment, and the bards filled the role. Bards were actor, singer, illusionists, and more rolled into one. Even when traveling acting companies began to appear, they had to be a bit multifaceted to make a go of it out on the road.
This continued to be the case even after the advent of the printing press. The press made it easier to produce multiple copies of things, but it was an expensive and time-consuming operation. Not only was the press expensive, but parchment and paper were as well. Therefore, most printed items tended to be either books or special announcements from the government that needed to be read far and wide so all the people would hear them. Literacy was far from universal, and any who would decry the status of such today should look back a hundred years or more for contrast.
The concept of news as news, unembellished, timely, and unbiased was largely undreamed of until fairly recently. Traveler’s tales were in great demand, but all knew to take them with a grain, or a keg, of salt. It was quite often impossible to tell fact from fiction, which produced a number of problems, solutions, and perplexing situations.
In the 1600s, this began to change somewhat, but did not flower as an ideal until the 1700s. It was during this time that the great thinkers and philosophers of the day made the point that people were capable of looking after themselves, and making good decisions, if provided with the right information. This also coincided to some degree with the rise of the merchant class, who needed accurate information for purposes of trade. It was then that the first broadsheets began to be published, primarily with shipping schedules, fees, and other information needed for business. This was aided by newer presses and improved means of paper production.
The idea of accurate information grew out of the needs of business, out of capitalism. The other driving force in this was science, and the meme from it that all could be explained logically, rationally, and accurately through the discoveries being made. These memes merged, spread, and grew among the intellectual elite of the time. Some began living it, and the broadsheets transformed a bit into things that were the precursors of today’s newspapers and magazines.
The term “the press” grew out of the printing presses of the day. Even with improvements they were expensive, large, heavy, and took several people to work in an efficient manner. Therefore, “the press” served the needs of a large area and once the idea of competing broadsheets began, they also found service printing rival publications at different times. It was to ensure that the presses would continue to be used for such that the modern concept of freedom of the press was born. It was to ensure both that the government did not control the presses, and therefore the flow of news and information, and to ensure that presses were not limited to just one group.
The journalists of the time are in many ways barely recognizable by the ideals of today. They were partisan, and broadsheets and newspapers were closely allied with various political parties and factions. That is still quite true in a majority of the world today, though many in The Media and various ivory towers do their best to pretend that it is not so. Having traveled the world a bit, read papers and watched news elsewhere, and talked to the people involved in the production of same, it is my opinion that this practice is far more widespread than not.
The U.S. was not and is not exempt. Just look at the history of such papers as the New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune (copperheads anyone?), or of the Washington Times and Washington Post today. Almost every major paper in the U.S. was, and to some extent still is, affiliated with a political party or movement.
Just as partisanship has continued on, so too have elements of the bardic tradition. Writers and broadcasters seek to capture, to enthrall, to wax eloquent on the topics of the day. While this may show learned background, and that was a part of the bardic tradition since they often were literate and more, it is also an attempt to boost readership and viewership. Simply look at the writing of the 1800s and it is plain to see. This has lead to some great writing, some even truly great in literary terms, but it can also be as misleading as any tale of dragons or daemons who will eat the ships that sail off the edge of the world.
This continued into the new media of the age as well: radio. Radio stations sprang up, and were often spinoffs of print media empires. Until monopoly laws changed the practice, it was not uncommon and generally accepted.
The concept of modern reporting actually is a product of the last century, the 1900s. It was then, through a variety of events that occurred in the U.S., that the idea of accurate, unbiased, beholden to none, straight news came into being. For background purposes, there were several scandals in government and in the media itself that brought this about. When the people of the country found out that both the media and the government had been lying to them, or at the very least not telling the whole truth, the outrage had to be dealt with in a constructive manner.
There are numerous parallels to what we face today. Advertisers were influencing the news, celebrities and politicians were getting preferential treatment, payoffs were being made to media and to government, and it was clear that all the rules – and a heck of a lot of laws – were being broken. This brought about the reforms that were to “end” corruption in government, and reforms were made in the media by the media. The latter was to ensure that regulatory efforts were not made on any level, and to prevent further business losses.
The next post will explore this a bit further, so that we can get a better picture of how we have reached from print and radio to today.
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