Newspapers took time to develope after they had been first created, much like a flower must grow in order to mature. "No previous news medium had been as successful in weaning humankind from its busybodies as the newspaper would be, but the process would take hundreds of years." pg. 147 It would take much time for the newspaper to rival the speed of spoken news in cities, it might only have yet to conquer the very smallest of rural towns. Science and the credibility of the newspaper would come later still. After all, the public wanted to read about spooky, gruesome, fantastical tales that could hardly be true, but this is what they wanted. No one wanted to read about something mundane or something that didn't immediately catch the eye. Later on different inventions would assist with the speedy travel of news such as the telegraph, radio, and TV. These would also help journalists to report facts accurately, or at least more so than they had before. Without these advancements, it is most likely that we would not trust the newspapers to the degree that we do today. Often enough, people put more credit in something that has been written as opposed to something that they hear, or have seen.
"There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly terrible to tyrants, and their tools and abettors, as a FREE PRESS." - Samuel Adams. I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. Dr. Jerz has told us many times in EL 227 that as soon as a new government comes into power, that they move to suppress or control the press. That way, the public will only read that which the government wishes them to read, nothing else. It's truly a form of control for the government and it could be quite costly for them to lose it. After all, the press played important roles in both the American Revolution as well as the French Revolution. Several newspapers gained the term "underground press" as later newspapers would be called in the 1960s and 70s. It seems as if they were pretty outlandish fellows who had no care for the law and they saw every reason to break it. Democracy can not succeed without a Free Press and even if our system of government isn't perfect, it would certainly be doomed without the Free Press.
I would've rather read about spooky, gruesome tales that were not true. Oh god! The news today is horrific. I am sick of Brittany Spears going crazy, and the Ramsey case, why do such stupid stories make the news? Who gives a frig'! That is pure crap to me.
It is weird to see how newspapers have developed over the centuries. They certainly are different from today's display of news. We do have credibility and "truth" within most news nowadays and to see how we have established such credibility is a wonder in itself.