Newspapers and Magazines

Today in class we learned a lot, and by a lot, I mean a lot about newspapers and magazines. How they came to be, what it involves, and why it's still around today.

I really like the history aspect to the recent lectures. The majority of the things we are learning relate to history in very obvious ways. I've always enjoyed history, and so being able to talk about Colonial America and the impact that's had on the newspaper industry is incredible. 

I really like the idea of setting a timeline and then going through the major events in that timeline, but I feel like we should've spent more time emphasizing some of the stuff on the timeline - not because it was too fast, but because it was really interesting. The timeline helped me understand how the newspaper achieved a high peak back in the 1850s-1950s, and then how and why it lost popularity.

We learned about Zenger who, in court, established that truth is the defense against all defamation. This really made the newspaper industry boom, and there wasn't much that Britain could do about it. 

If someone were to ask me why the newspaper was still around, I wouldn't have known until today when we talked about it being affordable - at least compared to other mediums. It's portable, and you can carry it easily, and it's tradition, people like to read the newspaper because that's how they get their day started. That's only a few, but it's really neat as to why the newspaper is still around

We didn't talk too much about magazines, but I did learn that magazines are really important, and were really important to the culture in Colonial America - so important that congress allowed magazines to be shipped for a penny a pound!

Overall, today's lecture was really interesting, and I enjoyed the history component of it. While a bit overwhelming, I'm really intrigued by the formation and the process of newspapers and magazines - something I had never really considered before.