Newspapers

When I went to the barbershop the other day I had to wait a few minutes while the barber finished with a customer. On the counter sat a daily newspaper, The Minneapolis Star Tribune.  It seemed to be waiting for me to pick up and page through since it had been quite awhile since I had held a real daily paper in my hands. I enjoyed turning the pages. This is not to say I don’t read a daily paper since I subscribe to four of them, two in-state and two national. But here’s the rub, they are digital. Holding a paper in hand like the one in the barbershop encourages a slower, deeper concentration of reading experience for me. Digital versions just aren’t quite as comfortable.

Since we have available so much reading material in our home, it’s been very tempting to make some choices and drop one or two. One of the subscriptions considered for dropping was the Bismarck Tribune, but something occurred recently that changed my mind. The Tribune was the subject of a takeover by a company named Alden Global Capital that made a bid to buy Lee Enterprises, which owns them along with about 100 other U.S. newspapers. 

The management of the Lee company did some maneuvering I don’t quite understand, but it succeeded in making themselves undesirable for the outside company to own. This was important because Alden has the reputation of firing staffs down to bare minimum and sucking out profits and assets. As it stands, the Tribune is a good paper and because of their action to keep the wolves away, I decided they are worthy of my support.

Newspapers and other news media hold a strong place in a democracy. They’ve been called the Fourth Estate, the first three being Legislature, Executive, and the Judiciary. Citizens of this country have a right to know what’s going on with the other three which makes it essential for the media to tell us.

 

A book by Doris Kearns Goodwin - The Bully Pulpit - clears the way for me as a citizen to understand the importance of journalism in relation to governmental affairs. It outlines a transformative period in our history, especially so with the parts covering “The Golden Age of Journalism.”  

The foremost politicians of the period were Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, but a journalist named S. S. McClure and his staff caused significant change at high levels. McClure employed investigative reporters, namely Ida Tarbell, Ray Baker, and Lincoln Steffens who successfully uncovered the crimes of robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. Their reporting gave rise to the term “Muckraker Journalism.”

What was Ida Tarbell’s involvement? Her father had been a small independent oil producer who found the rates suddenly and arbitrarily double on shipping his crude oil by rail. John D. Rockefeller was behind it, a move designed to choke competition and set him on his monopolistic ways. The Smithsonian Magazine states it clearly, “Tarbell would redefine investigative journalism with a 19-part series in McClure’s magazine, a masterpiece of journalism and an unrelenting indictment that brought down one of history’s greatest tycoons and effectively broke up Standard Oil’s monopoly.”

Her father’s bankruptcy rankled her and caused Tarbell to say of Standard Oil, “They had never played fair and that ruined their greatness for me.” She got on Rockefeller’s case and her investigative reporting made Americans realize Rockefeller was a man who drove honest men from business. As a result Standard Oil was broken into baby Standards; he was stung by it all, calling Tarbell “that poisonous woman.”

Ray Baker began to notice a growing tension between labor and capitalists, and his work along that line caused McClure to hire him. Baker developed strong empathy with the working man and reported on the strike brought by workers of the Pullman rail car company whose wages had declined while stockholders dividends increased. In another instance he traveled to Colorado and reported on what he said was “corruption & bribery on the part of the corporations & violence on the part of the strikers.” Where other reporters glossed over details, Baker reported accurately.

Lincoln Steffens was one of these original “muckrakers,” and wrote newspaper and magazine exposés that gave journalism a new purpose, a voice in American democracy. He is especially noted for his reports on the workings of corrupt political machines in several major U.S. cities. They inspired reformers in other cities to address the corruption that plagued their city halls.

Other journalists earned their place in what is called the Progressive Movement. Jacob Riis wanted urban reform, Ida B. Wells sought Civil Rights, Florence Kelley fought for rights of working women and children, John Spargo wrote of the horrific working conditions of child laborers. Upton Sinclair has to be mentioned as the author of The Jungle which told of the unsanitary conditions in the meat packing industry.  

The importance of journalism reveals itself when reading the works of the previously mentioned writers who worked during this period. Both presidents that Doris Kearns Goodwin writes of in the book became supporters of the Progressive Movement and much legislation improving working conditions occurred during their terms in office. Changes occurred with domestic policies, promising the average citizen fairness, breaking of trusts, regulation of railroads, and pure food and drugs. As I mentioned earlier, this was a transformative period in the United States brought about because of exposing through the pens of journalists. That’s what I was reminded of when I held the barber’s newspaper in my hands.