During the 19th century penny press papers were cheap, tabloid style newspapers produced in America, these papers were famous for costing one cent (one penny) compared to other papers. The penny papers were revolutionary, it was an awakening of writing news for people
who were not highly educated. It tapped into the regular public as it made the news accessible to the working class and middle class citizens for a reasonable price rather than the expensive newspapers and articles that were written by the elite for the upper class.
During the mid 19th century objectivity became a factor in
journalism because of the creation of wire services. The associated press – 'the AP' needed objectivity to be profitable.
The first (new) journalism known as the Yellow Press came about in the late 19th
century. The Yellow Press began to shake up the newspapers, making them more interesting, as well as sensationalising the articles written for them. It was a way of provoking a reaction from their audiences to what they were reading.
Competition soon arose in New York- The world of William Randolph Hearst of
the New York journal and Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World. They tried every
dirty trick in the book to beat one other in the circulation war throughout the city.
Randolph
focused on human interest stories, he wanted you not to think but to care about
the stories, these stories were dramatic,romantic,shocking and emotive, he wanted to create a
reaction. Randolph engaged his writing with t the working class, as America was becoming extremely
wealthy.
Sensationalisation was the new writing tool, it involved huge, emotive headlines with BIG
striking pictures similar to what we now read in the Sun on Sunday. It was exclusive, giving audiences dramatic stories, romantic
stories, shocking stories and crime stories.
However not everyone was so taken with this new aspect of journalism. Many called yellow journalism the 'new journalism without a
soul'. They believed that all the stories were about sin, sex and violence.
America in the 1960s and 70s was similar to the time of Hearst and the
Yellow Press. There was a great deal of political and social upheaval – America was
fighting foreign wars, with even more serious military threats building
overseas.
Journalists recorded the events of the day, normally in a
formulaic way.
This included the five 'w’s' (who,what,when,where,why) this was the structure of the news pyramid giving audiences everything they needed to know about the story in the fist few lines of the article. The New Journalism was an
attempt to record events mirroring the language and the style of events. It was
an attempt to reflect what was happening at the time in a more accurate and
truer sense. The idea was to let the words 'bleed
into the copy'
Political and cultural sense;
The 1960's was particularly turbulent, there was great hope for John F
Kennedy. A new role model for America, he was young, attractive and embracing his presidential duties, he embodied the American dream however this was all destroyed with his assignation in 1963, it became a moment of soul searching for America.
America then got
involved with the Vietnam war – it was a disastrous event as they started to draft in and conscript people into the army so they would go to Vietnam to support their country. The wealthy people of America could avoid this as they had more power and status, an example of this being Muhammed Ali who refused to be
conscripted ‘I aint got no quarrel with them Viet Cong’
For demographic reasons the baby boom created a powerful youth
culture. This was a spike in the population, when we got to the mid sixties, a
lot of the baby boomer's, who were born after the war left America with a huge amount of teens, these teens then went to uni and became very powerful and very vocal. The
youth culture became a phenomenon that the political elite had to deal with. In
the 60’s and 70's the youth turned away from Vietnam and marched for civil rights. It was the voice of change, as young people dominated the radical politics in America.
There was also a sexual revolution. In the mid sixties it became
legally acceptable in America for women to use contraceptive methods such as pills and condoms etc. It was the beginning of sexual freedom. During the mid 1960's it was the beginning moment when women could take control of their
reproductive system for the first time ever. This was a big deal as it divulges into existentialism, it looks into freedom and a choice, they could have a
choice as they could have casual sex, they did not have to marry the first person
they had sex with.
Reichian believed in free love, he was incredibly influential around this time. He was however a follower of Freud but fell out with him as he believed that Freud had it wrong,
he thought everyone should just ‘let it all hang out’ and that the way to happiness was through fantastic orgasms.
The sexual revolution tied in with feminism, civil rights, pacifism, and the student
movement – each was radical and held some really good issues for people to hold onto and march for. Universities became the centre of radical politics, however the police waded in using methods of shocking and baton charging to re-enforce their position amongst the students. It was a terrible political time as women marched for equal
rights as were black people.
The use of drugs soon materialised as LSD began making its way through the student scene. It was first introduced by the CIA as they
believed they could use it to control the mind, experimenting with mind controlling
techniques, it was a means of access altered thinking of counter culture.
As more and more LSD sneaked into the campus life, it was used as a way to escape
from the normal, controlling hierarchy and to have true and real experiences.
The prohibition of drugs, and the sheer hypocrisy of the government was to
ban LSD and to come down very hard on users, this pushed all drug culture
underground and created very influential sub cultures, what we now see as hippies. It also
established in the minds of the older generation that the youth culture was
deviant and all bad things came from young people. The CIA basically created
the need for LSD and a drug culture, the government stamped it out and forced
it underground, which gave young people the idea that they were not part of society, that they were detached and that they were different; they believed in the motto “turn on, tune in,
drop out”.
Music was central. For Satre jazz was authentic, you were not
living in bad faith, you were living a true and authentic life. The music of the
1960's was an attack on the normal, drug fuelled lyrics. They instead began to write anti-establishment songs, as well as protest songs which soon became popular as the aim was to be subvert and to be political.
'The real world is happening outside on the streets, put two
fingers up to everything, the world is happening out there, get involved'.
The Influence of extentialism;
Ideas informed by extentialism – Heideggers authenticity,
Satres bad faith
The Key ideas – freedom and choice, for example Fanon's view of a
path to feedom via accelerated choice (violence). As we have, for Fanon the act of violence is
essentially the extreme expression of choice. it is a choice with real, immediate
impact. He took Satre's idea of choice one step further, to get to the point of
freedom we have to push and use violence to get to that point of freedom, it
gets us to that point much quicker.
Malcom X – the black power movement formed by extentialism. He wanted to cut away everything from his past, and did not want to be defined by his
past – he is arguing with Fanon that violence is the way to freedom.
There is no God, there is no meaning to life. You do not
come into the world with inherent meaning, There are great expanses for you to
fill with meaning. You then create meaning through your choices and your
actions.
The attack that people make on extentialism is that if everybody has
their own internal meaning, if we decide what's good and bad, what's moral and
immoral surely that could create anarchy. There is nobody to say what is evil.
The argument against is that extentialism is about freedom and if you limit somebody
else's freedom that is bad faith.
The Anti-establishment feeling; ‘there is a policeman inside
your head – he must be destroyed’ began to seep into journalism.
Journalists question whether basing stories on press
releases, press conferences and official statements made by the establishment are really objective – and more important a true reflection of events? (this could be seen as bad
faith)
Is this a true reflection of what is happening in society – are we
being inauthentic?
Journalists began to focus on setting, plot, sounds,
feelings, direct quotes and images, whilst still being as careful as before
with facts. Trueman Capote, Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer are examples of this
new breed.
There wasn't any great moral super-structure, the
individuals subjective view was just as valid. A good sign for journalists to
be a bit awkward, and to be more difficult.
Marshall McLuhan's Hot and Cool media;
Hot media – very explicit about what it is trying to tell
you, its not giving you a freedom of choice about interpreting the
information yourself.
Cool media – the seeing, this is where it is ambiguous, you
have to interpret the media yourself, you can see what is happening, however you are not entirely
sure what is happening but you conclude an interpretation yourself.
In new journalism ‘objectivity’ (authority’s message) is
junked in favour of subjective experience. Most Famous example is Thomas Wolfe.
Wolfe was a huge fan of Emile Zola whom was one of the greatest
writers of natural realism.
‘Zola crowned himself as the first scientific novelist, a
“naturalist”, to use his term, studying the human fauna’ according to Wolfe.
Wolfe enters journalism and the first thing he notices is the
status competition within the roles.
‘The competition varies through – the reporters are in the
“scoop competition” – SKY are “first for breaking news” and the BBC “updated
every minute of every day”.
Ambulance chasers – stories about “power” and “catastrophe”
The other is the feature game – “a story that fell outside
the category of hard news” The game was to hold your own in the competition until
you got busy writing a novel.
The features game was changing; there were new articles with real,
intimate dialogue.
A reporter needs to be there to see it, to collect the data
first hand. Once there it is only a small step to becoming involved – another
character in the scene – Gonzo journalism. Think HST “The Kentucky derby”
New Journalism – pages 46 and 47
The two most important pages about features you will ever
read. Read them.
The journalists embraced social realism. They learned the
techniques of realism from Balzac, Zola and Dickens.
The power derived from four devices;
1.
Scene by Scene construction – telling the story in
scenes and not in sheer “historical narrative” Journalists needed to be at the
event to witness it.
2.
Realistic dialogue involves the readers more completely
than any other single device – it also defines character more quickly and
effectively than any other single device.
3.
Third person point of view “giving the reader the feeling
of being inside the characters mind” Need to interview the subject about
his/hers thoughts and emotions, along with everything else.
4.
The fourth device is the recording of everyday
gestures, habits, manners, customs, styles of furniture, modes of behaviour
towards children, superiors, inferiors and other symbolic details that might
exist within a scene. Symbolic of peoples status life.
Ultimate New journalism piece is FEAR and LOATHING… “Gonzo
journalism” a fly on the wall, shaky, authentic type of footage.
“Performance journalism” - e.g.‘Supersize me’ – Michael
Moore. You're putting yourself in the story – you are central to that story.
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