This paper describes an episode in the history of journalism that reveals a continuing tension in news reporting. Dating from the invention of the telegraph in the late nineteenth century, news reports have been increasingly patterned after either a "scientific" or a "literary" model. The scientific report is based on irreducible facts, high-speed…

Rapidly advancing communications technology has moved the concept of speech far beyond that imagined by the authors of the First Amendment. Similarly, the power of the government to license, tax, regulate, and investigate has also increased enormously. Communications media have come to dominate the consciousness of Americans, and particularly news…

Thirty-three articles present observations on how the media operate and how the media have affected society to date. The articles deal with a wide variety of topics, including the editorial page; political cartooning; daily-newspaper starts and suspensions from 1960 to 1969; journalistic ethics; well-known journalists, such as John Dunlap, James…