Marin’s Early Connections to Partisan News Media
By Robert L. Harrison
Historians note the forerunner of English language newspapers was the 16th century publication in England known as Relations. The earliest surviving example features an account of the 1513 Battle of Flodden between England and Scotland. These pamphlets were not regularly published. Moreover, because in the early 17th century, printing news in England was prohibited, the first English language news periodical was printed in Amsterdam. By 1702 when news publications were again permitted, the Daily Courant began printing in England. It was the first daily news publication in Brittan.
American newspapers first appeared in the 18th century when the country was still an English colony. In 1704, The Boston News-Letter, a weekly, became the first continuously published newspaper in the colonies. Nearly all early papers were aligned with a political party or platform, clearly partisan and not concerned with journalistic objectivity.
News reporting in the late 18th and early 19th centuries is often identified as the “Party Press Era.” Editors received patronage from political parties usually in the form of government printing contracts but often as direct payments. Benjamin Franklin argued that these common practices increased the risks relying on the press to keep government in check and accountable. The number of newspapers in the newly independent country grew rapidly. In 1783 there were just 35 papers, but 50 years later the number exceeded 1,200.
The party press era coincided with the rise of national political parties. Initially, the Republicans and the Federalists were the principle parties, soon followed by the Whigs and the Democrats. Party papers gave a one-sided view of the news. As historian William E. Gienapp wrote in his 1982 Essay on Antebellum Politics, “Editors unabashedly shaped the news and their editorial comment to partisan purposes…. [T]the power of the press is not in its logic or eloquence, but in its ability to manufacture facts, or to give coloring to facts that have occurred.” Both “fake news,” first chronicled in the 1890s, and the contemporary “alternative facts” are terms recently used by some to deride conclusions reached by other sources.
Marin’s first weekly newspaper, the Marin County Journal, was founded March 23, 1861 as a supporter of the Republican Party viewpoints and candidates. This was despite the promise of its first editorial: “we shall endeavor to satisfy ourselves that we have discharged our duty without fear, favor or affection of any clique or party, political or religious.”
Over the years, under several different names and ownership, the Journal endorsed the candidates of the Republican Party including the reelection of Abraham Lincoln in 1864. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the majority of Marin residents voted Republican.
The Journal’s determination to support Republican candidates regardless of strong negative evidence is fully on display in this editorial of Oct 30, 1884: “We cannot forbear to urge Republicans to vote straight this year….there are good reasons for sticking to the ticket.…It is a good year to stand by your principles and your party.” In 1884, in the campaign for President, the Republican, James G. Blaine, was tarnished by charges of scandal. He was alleged to have corruptly influenced legislation in favor of railroads and later profited from the sale of company bonds he owned. He denied any wrongdoing but was damaged such that the Republican New York Times supported the Democrat, Grover Cleveland. The vulnerability at the top of the Republican ticket may have led the Journal to emphasize the need to vote a straight Republican Party ticket.
In October 1892, the Journal took on the role of cheer leader for local Republican candidates. “No Republican has any reason to scratch a single name off his ticket this year and put in its place the name of a Democrat. Vote the straight ticket down to constable. Let us roll up a rousing majority….” Twelve years later in an October 1904 editorial the paper headlined its rather relentless endorsement of Republicans: “Importance of Electing Republican Congressmen.”
For its first 18 years, the Journal had no serious media rival backing the opposition party. Then in July 1879 the first edition of the Democrat-leaning Marin County Tocsin appeared in San Rafael. For the next 39 years until its last issue in August 1918, the Tocsin favored the Democratic Party and served as the local voice for greater government activism. A good example was the paper’s firm support in the 1890s for construction of Tiburon Boulevard, a new road from San Rafael to Tiburon. This early road was ultimately completed but should not be confused as an early version of today’s Tiburon Boulevard. It was a new street built many years prior to the existence of Highway 101. A small section of the original street still known as Tiburon Boulevard exists today in San Rafael at the top of the hill south of downtown.
In a January 23, 1897 editorial, the Tocsin expressed its view of party politics as they existed in the late 19th century. The editorial followed the 1896 election of Republican William McKinley over William Jennings Bryan. The previous President, Democrat Grover Cleveland, had presided over the economic depression known as the Panic of 1893. The Tocsin summed up its view this way:
“The trials and sorrows of our Republican brethren are gathering every hour, and the prospect is admirable that the coming four years of their supremacy in national affairs may be more disastrous than the same period just elapsed has proved to their opponents.”
The Republican sweep in the 1902 local election spawned an anguished editorial cry from the Tocsin: “A Sad Day and Sadder Night for Democracy. Disaster Nearly all Along the Line. The result has been a severe shock to Democratic hopes in this county.” When the Tocsin went out of business on August 1, 1918 the Democratic partisan view lost its most reliable and ardent supporter. The Republican based Journal continued with a conservative slant well into the 1900s.
As the 20th century dawned some newspapers began to reconsider their editorial standards. Many favored greater objectivity. In 1922 the American Society of News Editors (ASNE) endorsed guidelines of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics. The Code still used today includes the responsibility to report objectively with accuracy. Most Americans value objective reporting and are disappointed at the recent lot of clearly biased news stories.
In the 20th century, news media expanded to radio and later to television. Standards for news broadcasts were created in 1927 by the Federal Radio Commission. In the 1950s the three television networks presented a daily 15 minute news summary. The public found CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite so reliable he earned the nickname “The Most Trusted Man in America.”
Despite the 1927 standards media bias did not totally disappear. Initially networks introduced broadcast news as a public service. When they discovered news programs could be made profitable, broadcasts focused more on entertainment reporting. Today cable news, as is well-known, strongly orients some reporting and opinion programs to fit specific points of view.
As newspapers slowly disappear, more and more people get their news from social media on the internet. Anyone familiar with these and other sources ought to know by now that the social network news is clearly less objective than was envisioned by both the ASNE 1922 guidelines and the 1927 federal standards.
