I was looking through some Washington Post headlines recently, and my favorite one was from last week. This is the headline. This is true, not fake news. It is an actual headline. It said this. Can republicans relearn how to accept political outcomes that they dont like . [laughter] thats what the Washington Post was wondering last week. The more notorious headline was , joel alluded to this, was when we learned about the killing of the isis leader. Did you see the headline the Washington Post gave that . Albaghdadi,was austere religious scholar at the head of the islamic state, dies at 48. That was of actual headline in the Washington Post. I dont know your experience, but that was like the best day ever on twitter. Because everybody started inventing their obituary headlines. There was one that said noted great, noted for his special interest in small children, died at 77. Do you know the author brad thor, the novelist . He put up this one, john wilkes booth, renowned thespian, theater goer, and passionate supporter of states rights, dies at 26. Then there was this. Adolf hitler, vegetarian, landscape painter, and german statesmen, dies at 56. I think we have way too many hit ler references in our politics, we should avoid them, but that one made me laugh. I want to start with a couple of lines about the press. Let me read this to you. The American Press is, to a fearful extent, in the hands of a cowardly mercenary and class unprincipled class of men who have no regard for truth in dealing with what is unpopular, who cater to the lowest passion of the multitude, and character caricature every movement aiming at the overthrow of established wrongs, who are as destitute of all fairness and controversy as they are lacking in selfrespect, and whose columns are closed against any reply that may be proffered to their libelous accusations. Does that sound familiar . Someone said Thomas Jefferson, it is not. It is William Lloyd garrison, 1858. 1858. So we have been complaining about the press for a long time. Theres almost nothing more american than complaining about the press. For the next three hours, i like saying that and seeing the reaction. [laughter] tonight, i want to talk about the history of journalism with an eye toward explaining the moment we find ourselves in right now. And i also want to push back against this increasingly popular fairytale that the press used to be a lot better than it is today, in the sense that things were so much better a generation ago, wasnt it wonderful when we had a completely objective press that always told the truth . I hear that more and more, i am hearing it especially from liberals in the media who are often complaining about the existence of fox news. Im also hearing it from my own students who bought into this idea that social media has wrecked everything in journalism and made it worse than ever before. I think the truth is more complicated. One of the things i want to say about the state of journalism today is, it has never been worse and it has also never been better. I will explain that a little bit, as well, and also raise what i think are a few unique challenges for us today, both as conservatives and libertarians, but everyone who is an american who wants to follow the news. The question i like to ask my students at the start of a semester in journalism courses is, what is the purpose of a newspaper . They will raise their hands and start to give earnest replies about informing the citizens and presenting facts to the public and so forth. These are all good answers, and there is truth in them, but the purpose of a newspaper is to make money. It is a business. Its a commercial enterprise. We can never lose sight of that fact. Its important to recognize. There are great strengths and weakness and vulnerabilities to that comes with that when you are in the press, but we cant ever forget it. Of the factownsides that this is a business is that you were always chasing after readers and trying to get more. Today we hear about click bait on the internet. It is simply to get someone to click the link because it is a provocative headline or picture, because the website will get another nickel for someone having done that. Not even, a fraction of a nickel even. Thats all about making money. But journalism has always had this incentive, with sensationalism as a word we have attached to this, or yellow journalism, all about selling copies of newspapers by telling fibs, by reporting fake news, etc. It has always been there. The purpose of newspaper is to make money. We cant lose sight of that. It has led to some bad decisions and abuses of what we consider good journalism. Throughout history. I want to go back in time to the founding era of our country and talk about what journalism was like then. I will mention three extraordinary journalists, and one interesting, colorful journalist. The founding father of journalism in certain ways in our country is ben franklin. Instead of george washington, washington is first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of the countrymen. Ben franklin was like first in everything else. When we think about what makes franklin great, what comes to mind . ,iplomat, scientist, inventor politician, all kinds of things he was really great at. The first thing he was was a journalist, a printer, making money printing newspapers and periodicals. This was his business. He was an amusing writer. He published one of the great periodicals in American History. Poor richards almanac. These things made him wealthy. It enabled him to do the other things for which we remember him. Ben franklin started out as a great journalist. An exemplary journalist, someone who is a model before. Have you signed up for the new , steve hayes, the dispatch, they are calling it . They got the name from the writing of ben franklin. Hes the inspiration for their new media enterprise. Another great journalist is wrote commonwho that, more document than any other, convinced the colonists to declare independence against the throne in england. He wrote it as a pamphlet, an essay published on its own. The pamphlet was a great form of journalism back then. We have lost it now. We dont really have pamphlets. In that era, they were pamphlets. Ideas in it was a fantastic medium for debating ideas. Great practitioner of it and wrote the most influential one in American History that spurred us on to the fourth of july. A third great journalist from that era is Alexander Hamilton, founder of the new york post, the best newspaper in new york. Right . He founded the new york post, which is still with us. Also, the author of the federalist papers. One of the authors of the federalist papers. When we encounter the federalist papers today, when we have to read them in school, they come to us as a book. They were really newspaper opeds. Every number of the federalist was a newspaper oped. If Alexander Hamilton and james madison, and john jay were writing the federalist papers today, they would be opeds in the wall street journal. Thats how people read them back then. We forget that, because we regard them as classics of essentialphilosophy, in the ratification of the constitution and we read them in books now, but they were journalism. With those three great examples, we have ben franklin who was a great entertainer and a great businessman, maybe the first media mogul in american paine wem, with thomas have the first great polemicist in america. With Alexander Hamilton, the great persuader in opinion journalism in American History. I want to introduce you to james calendar, the first great political hack writer, hack journalist in American History. He has this colorful, wonderful, appalling story that he came to the u. S. From scotland, an immigrant in the 1790s, as so many journalists were. Alexander hamilton was. And calendar immediately entered into the news business. Back then, all of the newspapers were closely aligned with Political Parties. In fact the purpose of a lot of newspapers was not to make money, they were subsidized by the party. The purpose was to present their ideas and attack their rivals. So calendar signed up for that and became a jeffersonian in the 1790s. We sometimes put the Founding Fathers on a pedestal for all the great things they did and we forget the fact that a number of them didnt like each other, they fought with each other. Jefferson versus hamilton was one of the great divides in the early republic. James calendar signed up for the jeffersonian side. He started publishing, writing, so forth. In the early 1790s, he published a pamphlet which had a bizarre long title. In it, he accused Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, of financial impropriety. He basically accused him of abusing his position as treasury secretary to enrich himself through insider trading, essentially. He makes this accusation in print. We actually dont have any copies of the pamphlet he did this in. It appears Alexander Hamilton bought them all and destroyed them. [laughter] but we know what it said, because there was a reaction and people talked about it. We just dont have the original document. What hamilton said in reply was you are wrong, i have not been engaged in insider training, but its true i have been making payoffs to this figure in new york. Hes been blackmailing me for having an adulterous affair with his wife. So this actually demolished hamiltons reputation. People say he was on track to becoming president , but he never would have recovered from this accusation which james calendar reported. He didnt report precisely what happened, but exposed it through his rumormongering journalism. This partisan hack journalist undid, in many ways, the career of one of the great Founding Fathers. Hamilton remained active in politics, but he was different after that. Well, calendar goes on and continues writing for the jeffersonian. In the late 1790s, he runs afoul of the sedition act. Essentially, he started writing things so critical of the government and the Adams Administration that they threw him in prison. So he spent a couple of years in prison for having criticized the government in his writing. What about them up pre about freedom of the press . A lot of people are wondering about freedom of the press at that point. The sedition act expired, Thomas Jefferson was elected our third president , and calendar exited jail at that moment. He came out thinking i spent the 1790s writing and fighting for Thomas Jefferson, i went to jail for his political party, to advance his ideas, i deserve a sweet political appointment. Jefferson didnt give him one. So calendar switched sides. He went from a jeffersonian attack dog to a federalist attack dog who waged war on the jefferson administration. And he moved down to richmond and he became the first writer to put in print the allegation that Thomas Jefferson was sleeping with a slave called sally. You probably heard that story, which were still debating today. Which we still dont know the entire truth about. But he exposed that, also. A partisan attack dog journalist. Is that the biggest scoop of the 19th century . Thats what he did. You dont hear about thomas calendar in many histories of american journalism. Hes a disreputable figure. In fact, when he reported on jefferson and hemmings, all he had were rumors. He had no proof. He just heard people talking about it, so he leveled the accusation in print. First person ever to do that. Turns out he may have been right. We dont entirely know. The circumstantial evidence is good. Thats what journalism was like back then, full of fake news and personal attacks, also sometimes truthful, maybe in unexpected ways. That is important to remember. As we moved into the 19th century, journalism remained highly partisan. Newspapers remained tied to Political Parties for most of the first half of the 19th century. You see vestiges of this when you see a newspaper such as the arkansas democrat gazette, the daily newspaper in little rock, arkansas, that has its old connections to the democratic party, and its in the title. In springfield, massachusetts, the springfield republican. I just learned santa rosa, california, there was the santa rosa republican. This is harking back to the days when newspapers had these partisan alliances. During this era, we had great opinion journalism during this era. William lloyd garrison was one of them. The fiery abolitionist leader. His newspaper was the great abolitionist paper of the era. Another great journalist was frederick douglass. We all regard him as one of the great champions of human freedom in our country. Most people encountered his work through his newspaper. Ator, known as orde a public speaker, but they read his speeches and work in a newspaper originally called the north star. Kind of nice to have a newspaper named after you after that. What started to happen is with the partisan division, some people had an interesting idea of how to make more money in journalism. That involves the birth of the Associated Press. It publishes wire Service Articles in newspapers around the country. The Associated Press started when five newspapers in new york decided to pool their resources to cover the mexican war. It would be cheaper to bring our resources together and get the same information coming out of mexico. The Associated Press formed to do that. Thats what it did. A few years later, one of the key writers for it had an insight. He thought we have all of these newspapers that supply information to half the country and these other newspapers do it for the other half based on partisan information. What if we had a company that sold our articles and information to everybody . The idea was well have objective journalism, nonpartisan journalism, report whats happening in washington, every paper, no matter what their political alliance, and thats basically what happened. They eliminated a lot of the overt partisanship that dominated American Press. And the Associated Press is still around today. Thats where the idea of objective journalism is born. It picks up steam, especially in the 20th century. Were also dealing with the era of yellow journalism, the era of hearst and pulitzer, the newspaper wars in new york city. Pulitzer, the most prestigious award in american journalism, is named after that guy. He was one of the biggest yellow journalists of his time, meaning fake news of the 1890s. Arguably, fake news let us us led us us into the spanishamerican war, when the uss maine blew up in the harbor of havana. The accusation the spaniards bombed it. It turns out maybe they didnt. Maybe it was just a boiler explosion and a tragedy. We went to war over that. The new york newspapers of hearst and pulitzer led us there. That is fake news, arguably. As this is happening, theres more objective journalism, the idea we are not going to sell to half of the country. It really picks up steam in the 20th century. The New York Times and the Washington Post are important forces in this effort. How objective were they really . Back in the good old days, when you could get your news from one of three sources on tv. They were picking their news based on what the New York Times put on its front page that day. Do you remember that . Was it as objective as people are claiming . I dont think so. Im reminded of Walter Cronkite, one of the most trusted man in america. Who misreported the results of the tet offensive in 1968, and possibly turned americans against the vietnam war permanently based on false information. Permanently based on false information. Saidr cronkite, who later he would have been Walter Cronkite, who later said he would have been delighted if George Mcgovern in 1972 asked him to be his Vice President ial running mate. Remember how much trouble mcgovern had with his running mate . He finally wanted up with sargent shriver. That was the most leftwing ticket in American History, at least before 2008. Mcgovern actually thought about asking Walter Cronkite onto the ticket, then decided not to, because he thought he would say no. Years later when this came out and someone told Walter Cronkite what he thought, cronkite would have taken him up in a second. He would have joined the most leftwing ticket in the 20th century. How objective is that . On we go. Im reminded of all the president s men. Terrific movie. Its also had a bad effect on journalism. Of youngages a lot people to go into journalism who thought the purpose of journalism was to bring down a government. Theres always been an adversarial side to journalism. You have to be willing to ask hard questions. That is all true. Crusader element to journalism. A lot of people in that era swept away by woodward and bernstein portrayed on film. Its a terrific movie, a fun movie to watch. They got swept away thinking it was the job of journalism, to bring down a government. Went in and started to think that way and influence that way. If you think im overstating things, do you remember dan rather in 2004 with blogger gate . The successor to walter contrite cronkite, one of three people who the majority of americans got their news in the 80s and 90s. Putting the bs back in cbs. They called it blogger gate, because these accusations were reported that president george w. Bush dodged his military service. A very serious charge in the season. An election it came out in like september of 2004. The kind of charge that if true, would have ended a presidency, and maybe should have,