American Journalism: A History

This concise history of American journalism--including newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and digital--introduces readers to the news media from the first colonial newspapers to today’s news conglomerates and the rise of the digital media.

Authors Ford Risley and Ashley Walter examine historical trends, including advocacy journalism, yellow journalism, investigative journalism, tabloid journalism, and digital journalism. They discuss significant individuals, from Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Pulitzer to Ida Wells and Nellie Bly, and they examine noteworthy news organizations, from the New York Times and Life to CBS and Fox News. They also discuss the role of new technologies, developing professional standards, and the impact of corporate business practices.

At a time when many doubt the trustworthiness of the media, How America Gets the News provides a fascinating historical perspective that will be of interest to all consumers of news.

Ford Risley is professor of communications and head of the Department of Journalism at Penn State University. He is the author of Civil War Journalism (Praeger, 2012), Abolition and the Press: The Moral Struggle Against Slavery (Northwestern University Press, 2008) and several scholarly articles on the Civil War press. He has taught the undergraduate mass media history course at Penn State regularly since 1995.