How America Gets the News: A History of U.S. Journalism [Hardcover]

This concise history of American journalismincluding newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and digitalintroduces readers to the news media from the first colonial newspapers to todays news conglomerates and the rise of the digital media.

Authors Ford Risley and Ashley Walter examine historical trends, including advocacy journalism, yellow journalism, investigative journalism, tabloid journalism, and digital journalism. They discuss significant individuals, from Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Pulitzer to Ida Wells and Nellie Bly, and they examine noteworthy news organizations, from the New York Times and Life to CBS and Fox News. They also discuss the role of new technologies, developing professional standards, and the impact of corporate business practices.

At a time when many doubt the trustworthiness of the media,How America Gets the Newsprovides a fascinating historical perspective that will be of interest to all consumers of news.

Ford Risleyis a distinguished professor in the Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University. He is the author or editor of four books, includingCivil War Journalism(Praeger, 2012) andAbolition and the Press: The Moral Struggle Against Slavery(Northwestern, 2008).
Ashley Walteris an assistant professor of journalism and media at Saint Louis University. She is an expert in womens media history. Her work has been published inJournalism History,American Journalism, and The Womens Media Center.

Risley and Walter deliver a taut, clear overview of American journalism. Their book chronologically presents what the authors call the founding, public, commercial, expanding, alternative, and digital presses. Licensing, literacy, newspapers, censorship, prior restraint, Benjamin Franklin, and the Zenger trial impacted Colonial journalism. Revolutionary and early republican publications led to the party press. From the early 1830s through the Civil lsu