Print Journalists and American Politics

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, newspapers were explicitly political, avidly supporting one political party and seldom writing anything positive about its opposition. In the late nineteenth century, the behavior of some newspaper publishers seemed to overstep the bounds of political partisanship and some Americans began to fear that the publishers of some of the nation's most influential newspapers had acquired an excessive and even dangerous amount of influence. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some journalists began to advocate that newspapers become more independent, objective, and professional. Especially in the twentieth century, news magazines also became influential. Weekly news magazines such as Time, Life, and Newsweek gained wide readership, and offered a more thorough analysis of events (as well as color photographs) than did most newspapers.

The rise of television and electronic media has reduced the readership and influence of newspapers and news magazines over the past half-century. Still, newspapers and magazines remain an important source of information for tens of millions of Americans, and newspapers retain a considerable amount of influence in our political life. The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal still have considerable prestige, and reach an educated, affluent, and influential readership. The advent of the Internet has also posed a challenge to newspapers, yet has also enabled some of the nation's most influential papers quickly to reach readers across the nation.