Newspaper Names

[J Cullen]

>  >> This is all untrue?  Most papers were once party-aligned?  Whence
>then
>>>  (and when) came our peculiar notion of journalistic objectivity?
>>
>>  I think it came about in the late 19th/early 20th century, when the
>>  "quality" press was trying to distinguish itself from the yellow
>>  press. The NY Times was a major player in the transformation.
>
>I thought a big player in it was the AP who wanted to be able to sell
>their stories to "anyone" without regard to slant.

AP may have provided the model, but the partisan papers continued 
long after AP was organized in 1848. It had more to do with the rise 
of journalism schools, those great cleansers of the public prints, in 
the early 20th century, coinciding with the first great wave of 
consolidation of newspapers and establishment of chains as they 
became more profitable, by people such as Frank Munsey, Joseph 
Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

Remember that Hearst newspapers built up their circulation as 
pro-labor sheets until the New Deal actually started allowing unions 
to organize. Then Hearst switched his papers to a more conservative 
viewpoint.

A.J. Liebling went over this ground brilliantly in "New Yorker" 
writings collected as "The Wayward Pressman."

By the way, AP membership used to be exclusive to one newspaper in 
each town. That's why Scripps-Howard started United Press and Hearst 
started International News Service.