As Gerald Baker wrote recently in the Wall Street Journal, the biggest threat to modern journalism is the journalists. He pointed out that bias and incompetent reporting are the major causes of media distrust these days. But while those factors are highly important, they aren’t the entirety of the news business’ failure.
Is that anything new? No. As Eric Burns describes in his book Infamous Scribblers — the term George Washington used to characterize the reporters of his day — American journalism began on the shakiest of ground. Mr. Burns begins the book by writing: “It was the best of times it was the worst of journalism, and it is no small irony that the former condition led directly to the latter, that the golden age of America’s founding was the gutter age of American reporting.”
In Burns’ book he writes how Sam Adams was making stuff up about the British to sell his broadsheet newspaper. And Burns goes to some length to explain how Washington was beset by nagging reporters. Does it all sound familiar?
Nothing much has changed since the Revolutionary War.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member