J296 – Topics in News Media History: Discovering America's Early Newspapers
Winter 2008
Prof. Douglas Cumming
Reid Hall 101
Office: 458-8208; Home: 462-2968
Office hours: by appointment (or drop by anytime I’m in)
Class meets: H – 3:35-4:30 p.m., M W F, Reid 302 and Boatwright Room, Leyburn (see schedule for meeting places, subject to change).
Overview: This is the third time I have taught this course. Its purpose is to offer an introduction to journalism history as an elective course within the Journalism Department. It also gives students a chance to take advantage of a valuable collection of historical newspapers recently donated to W&L’s Special Collections by Fred Farrar, ’41. The course is designed to engage interested students, not just journalism majors, in doing historical research using very old newspapers as primary sources.
Required Text: David Copeland, Debating the Issues in Colonial Newspapers (available in library -- 3 used copies for $60, one new for $80).
Recommended and on reserve:
Emery & Emery The Press and America (5th ed.)
The Farrar Collection of Historical Newspapers (http://journalism.wlu.edu/Farrar/)
Leyburn Library databases and microform collection for this course http://library.wlu.edu/research/guides/jour/jour295ac.asp
Couper,
Mott, Frank Luther, American Journalism (3rd ed., 1962). A classic, readable history, the starting point of most research in journalism history.
Sloan & Williams, The Early American Press, 1690-1783 (1994).
Sloan, W. David, American Journalism History: An Annotated Bibliography (1989).
Humphrey, Carol
Sue, The Press of the
Marzio, Peter C. The Men and Machines of American Journalism: A Pictorial Essay.
Copeland, David Colonial American Press (1997)
Schudson, Michael, Discovering the News (1978)
American Antiquarian Society, Three Hundred Years of the American Newspaper (1991).
Vanden Heuvel, Untapped Sources (ASNE, 1991)
Farrar,
-----, This Common Channel to
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Sr., Prelude to Revolution (1958).
Dictionary of Literary Biography, volume 43 (American journalists, 1690-1872).
Calder Pickett, Voices of the Past. Famous editorials.
Jeremy Black, The English Press in the Eighteenth Century (1987)
For Early American newspapers:
See 49 microform entries under Title: “Early American Newspapers” Or. . .
For early
see 14 books (Library Use Only) under Title: “Early American Newspapers – 1704-1820.” Or. . . http://annie.wlu.edu/search/tearly+american+newspapers/tearly+american+newspapers/1%2C2%2C63%2CB/exact&FF=tearly+american+newspapers+1704+1820&1%2C14%2C
What you will learn:
· Who some of the more colorful figures were from the early history of American journalism, and how women could flourish in this trade as well as men.
·
What impact the press had on presidential politics throughout
· When the press was decidedly partisan and often violent – in the American Revolution and other wars.
· Where our present-day notions of freedom of the press come from in the 18th and 19th centuries. (Including knowing the First Amendment by heart)
· How to read and interpret very old newspapers, a valuable skill for primary-source research, in-depth reporting, and gaining a wider perspective on today’s media.
I. Six projects:
1) Find someone buried in Stonewall Jackson Cemetery prior to 1900, find obituary and at least one other documentary source to write a brief report on this person.
http://library.wlu.edu/research/guides/jour/jour356.asp [3 pages] 10 percent
2) Select a single 18th century newspaper from
the Farrar Collection. Examine it closely – text, news judgment, style of
opinion writing, typeface, paper, layout and design, etc. (These are modern
terms; the point is to notice how these were different before we even had such
concepts as “news judgment.”) Write a report listing and describing six
differences between this paper and a typical newspaper today (whether the
3) Conduct a 10-minute press conference taking the role of a leading journalist from American history. You will be assigned your role within the first week. Every student in class must know facts about each journalist before the news conference in order to ask intelligent questions. 10 percent
[James Rivington, William Bradford III, John Peter or Anna Zenger, Isaiah Thomas, William or Mary K. Goddard, Sarah Updike Goddard, Benjamin Franklin, Peter Timothy, Benjamin F. Bache, William Cobbet, Benjamin Russell, Hezekiah Niles]
4) A report on “Life in
5) Flesh out indexing of newspapers in one of on-line web pages for the Farrar Collection web site http://journalism.wlu.edu/Farrar/index.htm. Choose one of the following: PF2, PF5, PF6, PF8, PF9, PF10, of BV4. For example of how much is needed for indexing, see http://journalism.wlu.edu/Farrar/pf1.htm 10 percent
6) Final research paper, 10-12 pp. with footnotes, bibliography. Proposed topic due by mid-term. Use standard Chicago Manual of Style formatting. 15 percent
II. Two short exams, to check up on keeping up with reading and classes: Mid-term and final.
Expectations: I expect you to spend on average at least a couple of hours a day in a focused, creative effort to dig deep into the meaning of these original newspapers. This will involve reading secondary sources, finding sources not listed in the syllabus, and pursuing some original research. This is not your typical history class: We are not starting with digested material from historians and their textbooks, but with primary material which we will explore the way an archeologist explores a dig. Actually, the skills I bring are those of an investigative journalist as someone trained in historical research. I expect you to practice these skills in doing the six assigned projects. I also expect that your reading for this course will show in the quality of your participation in class discussion and in how well you do on the midterm and final exams.
The exams are not long or difficult. Neither one should take more than an hour. I am giving these exams to add a little extra motivation for you to pay attention in class and in the readings. If you’ve kept up, you shouldn’t need any more than a brief review to do well on the exams. The final exam will cover readings and discussions from the second half of the course.
Attendance will be counted as a major part of your participation grade, unless you have an excuse before missing a class.
All papers should be typed, double-spaced, and pledged. Spelling and grammar do matter. The final research paper should have a cover sheet and follow Chicago Manual of Style formatting for footnotes or endnotes.
Grading:
10 percent for each project above except final research paper, which is 15 percent.
10 percent for each of the two exams.
15 percent for class participation.