The Chicago Daily Tribune foolishly, but famously, printed this headline before all of the votes had been counted.

Since the colonial era, Americans have read newspapers to follow important political issues. When John Peter Zenger was tried in 1735 for printing attacks on New York's colonial governor, a jury of his peers voted unanimously to release him. This zeal for a free press was etched into the Bill of Rights and made newspapers free to print "all the news that fits" since the earliest days of the Republic.

Newspaper editors heavily influenced the road to the American Revolution. Arguments against the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, and the burning of cities such as Norfolk were printed, enraging the reading public.

In 1917, the U.S. government released to the press a decoded German telegram (right) that threatened "unrestricted submarine warfare" against American ships. Public sentiment about World War I swiftly turned from a position of neutrality to a desire to enter the conflict. The coded version appears on the left.

Newspapers also played a major role in elucidating the arguments in favor of and opposed to the ratification of the Constitution. The most persuasive Federalist Papers were first printed in local newspapers.

William Randolph Hearst's sensational New York Journal used enormous and attention-seizing headlines to sell papers. This front page heralds the beginning of the Spanish-American War.

Back in those days, newspapers were often financed by a group of individuals who advocated a particular political ideology. Jeffersonians founded the National Gazette and the Aurora of Philadelphia to offset the conservative influence of the Federalist-backed Gazette of the United States. Andrew Jackson was known to consult frequently with prominent newspaper editors who were part of his infamous Kitchen Cabinet.

The nineteenth century brought marked changes to the newspaper industry. The invention of the telegraph led directly to the creation of the Associated Press in 1848. Now political stories could be sent by wire to newspapers across the nation. The growth of cities and increasing literacy rates enabled newspapers to generate enough funds to end their dependency on ideological patrons. This did not, however, decrease the influence of newspapers on politics. Abolitionist newspapers such as William Lloyd Garrison's the Liberator and their Southern counterparts helped galvanize Northern and Southern public opinions on the road to the Civil War.

By the end of the century, publishers turned to sensationalist headlines to beat the competition. "Yellow" publishers like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer created a furor over alleged Spanish misdeeds in Cuba, including the sinking of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor in 1898. As a result, President McKinley could avoid war with Spain only at his own political peril.

Although the advent of electronic media in the twentieth century provided new competition for print media, the power of newspapers remained strong. Woodrow Wilson released the Zimmermann telegram to the press to mobilize the public against the Kaiser's Germany in 1917. Occasionally, the papers even decided elections before the votes were cast, as evidenced by the Chicago Tribune's famous Dewey Defeats Truman headline in 1948.

Washington Post headline from the Watergate controversy.

Toward the new millennium, newspapers remain a major source of news for a majority of Americans. Editors continue to endorse political candidates before Election Day. Presidents continue to receive daily briefings on, and often read, the major newspapers. They even keep up with political cartoons and comic strips such as "Doonesbury" to see which way the political winds are blowing.

The art of political humor in newspapers lives on today through the pen of Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau, whose character "Duke" is making a run for the White House in 2000. Look out, Dubya!!

Despite brutal competition from newer forms of mass media, the old-fashioned daily paper retains its influence.

BACK | LINKS | NEXT