The Manipulation of Mass Media

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries one of the main motivations of the media in almost every country was to influence politics (“Mass Media”). Journalism is the profession of writing or reporting the facts and information of a certain event. Journalists are trained to be as objective as possible when reporting issues and events. The profession is constantly critiqued by both journalists themselves and others, because many articles have been found to have been tainted with bias (“Journalism”). Journalists may argue that participating in bias is an inevitable occurrence because one cannot be expected to completely suppress their beliefs, and that some bias may be unintentional. Critics argue that it is a journalist’s job to not have an opinion that their job is to simply report the facts of an issue and keep their voice out of their writing. From as early as the seventeenth century C.E., public mediums of information have been affected by bias. Authorities and governments have reacted in a multitude of ways to such bias throughout history. America’s history of media bias consists of laws prohibiting free speech, imprisonment of journalists, fines to media outlets and outrage by the public.

In the United States in 1790, there were only 90 newspapers, however, partisan politics throughout the decades influenced the amount to grow to 329 by the end of 1809 (par.17). Only 56 of the 329 newspapers remained non-partisan (par. 17). In Jeffrey L. Pasley’s book, “The Tyranny of Printers”, he notes that the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries of journalism were the “dark ages”, when the press was so heavily influenced by partisan politics and kept by weak editors (Pasley Pg. 2). During the nineteenth century, ...

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