Search

Pictorial journalism in the latter nineteenth century faced a temporal conundrum: whereas words could travel by telegraph and hence at the speed of electricity, the accompanying illustrations had to travel as material objects and were chronically belated. This article analyzes the strategies with which two prominent Victorian weekly papers—Illustrated London News and Punch—sought to deal with the slowness of illustration and reconcile the speed differentials between textual and visual news with their printing deadlines and production cycles. The most striking of these strategies was to deploy an 'oracular pencil' to work up an illustration before an event had taken place. These pre-produced illustrations relied on specific visual codes that shaped the illustrations' 'truth.' The article shows that, contrary to the self-positioning of pictorial journalists as reporting truthfully and speedily on the world 'out there,' the pictorial press had its own temporal and epistemological laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the role of a local newspaper in shaping a community's collective memory of child sexual abuse by documenting changing representations of a former rural orphanage and its custodians where such horrific crimes took place. The paper conducts an across-time analysis of news coverage (1944–1954 and 2010–2020) to map these changing representations in their media, policy and social contexts. It extends scholarship around collective memory and temporal reflexivity as a provocation for journalists to acknowledge and engage with their news outlet's own mediated past (no matter how uncomfortable) when reporting on and interpreting events such as Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The title of this paper refers to both the personality and work of two Spaniards, who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had to abandon their homeland fleeing from the absolutism of King Ferdinand VII (1784–1833). The exile of the Spanish liberal writers started in 1814 and was characterized by two major milestones: the first between 1814 and 1820, where Great Britain was the main destination; and a second wave which began in 1823 and ended in 1833, wherein France gained prominence as a reception centre. Although the journalistic activities that were both undertaken in Paris were less relevant than those carried out by other writers in London, the truth is that with their reading, we can better understand the study of this exile journalism and the subsequent liberal journalism that was developed in Spain when the conditions allowed it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reporting on crime and the courts are among the classic functions of journalism. In the UK, journalists and others must abide by the Contempt of Court Act 1981, the main piece of primary legislation aimed at ensuring coverage of legal matters is fair to the participants. The restrictions are generally tighter in practice than in jurisdictions such as the US, where the media has a much freer hand to engage in pre-trial reporting. This paper argues that media coverage of the arrest of the so-called 'Yorkshire Ripper' serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, in 1981 while Parliament was considering the question of contempt, has made the UK regime tougher than it might otherwise have been. Excessive reporting was influenced by an unusually celebratory police news conference. This news coverage coloured the contemporary debate around contempt, and any opportunity for a more relaxed approach to contempt in the UK's jurisdictions was lost. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The title of this paper refers to both the personality and work of the Spaniards who, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had to abandon their homeland fleeing from the absolutism of King Ferdinand VII (1784–1833), and the inhabitants of the Spanish colonies in the New World, the forerunners of the struggles for independence in their respective countries. Both ended up settling in London, a city that served not only as a refuge but also as a place from which to disseminate their slogans in favour of freedom. Three areas are discussed: the publications of liberal Spanish exiles in London in the early nineteenth century, the interaction between Spanish and (Latin) American exiles and the role of women in this endeavour and in the cause of liberalism in general. The London press shaped this exile journalism and the subsequent liberal journalism in Spain when the extreme censorship from which these exiled journalists had fled was finally lifted. We believe that this global approach offers an original perspective from which to highlight the role of women, with a view to filling the traditional historiographical lacuna in this regard. To this end, we have employed recent relevant literature and primary sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the information that was disseminated in the Netherlands and Spain—and other territories connected to the latter such as Portugal and Flanders under Habsburg rule—about the taking by the Dutch of the city of San Salvador de Bahia in Brazil, and his subsequent recovery by a Spanish-Portuguese expedition (1624–1625). Despite the different communicative structures, these national journalisms shared professional strategies to inform about the conflicts that occurred in the distant Brazilian lands. Given the difficulty of informing promptly and truthfully, the discourse of the Dutch and Spanish newspapers about their colonies alternates between the information explosion and silence, depending on the alternation between victories and defeats in American territory. News was as connected as were the empires that controlled vast territories in Europe and America, despite the ideological and religious differences of the era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes up the subject of the Journalist biography of Edgar Whitaker, one of the three editors of The Levant Herald (1856-1914), extending from London to the Ottoman Empire, while giving particular focus on his adventurous journey as a publisher since under his editorship The Levant Herald contributed to the formation of the political opposition to the Hamidian regime (1878-1909). The study addresses Whitaker's ongoing struggle against suppression, censorship and closure penalties that were imposed by the Ottoman government. His effort served to spread the journalism tradition within the Ottoman Press. The study also gives attention to the political, social, and cultural relations that Whitaker as a journalist of British nationality established with the Ottoman government, the British embassy, and the European Levantine communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral panic has become a popular concept to explain a media frenzy that has provoked public alarm. A largely unexplored area of panic has been the exceptional allegations of pro-Nazi secret agents in Australia during World War II. Moral panics have often been viewed as the outcome of the media acting as a single entity to generate wild reporting and mass hysteria. This article proposes a refinement of the concept by showing that the press published varied reporting about a government crackdown on so-called fascist spies. The article focuses on the British accused spy and self-proclaimed journalist, Adela Pankhurst, and John Curtin, a hard-hitting labour reporter who became Australia's wartime prime minister. Rival newspapers provided stylised expressions of civility and outrage about the sensational crackdown. The news of a battle against powerful traitors also shaped popular views of Curtin's leadership and Australia's need to uphold a democratic British identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the representation of tabloid journalists in 1930s British cinema. It argues that during this period, British films showed journalists to be collaborating with state powers to maintain a stable society. They also depicted reporters as not adhering to any recognised ethical framework. As a result, cinematic journalists in 1930s Britain differ markedly from later, better-known fictional reporters, as they do not challenge inequalities or uphold principles of ethics. The 1930s saw the consolidation and expansion of the popular press in Britain, as well as a boom in cinemagoing. The depiction of the relatively novel 'type' of the tabloid reporter in fiction films in this period therefore had the potential to greatly impact the public's view of the journalism profession. The article highlights how this under-researched period in British film history gives important indications of the place of the reporter in the country's popular imagination, in this decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an overview of the role of the media in nationalism and identity-shaping in post-crisis societies experiencing conflict, focusing on the impact of the recent economic crisis on diversity in political news reporting. The research is based on a time series analysis (2000–2019) of diversity in traditional and online political news reporting, framed by a thematic analysis of journalists' interviews. Cyprus is used as a case-study, as an example of a 'divided' country. Findings suggest that news diversity in societies experiencing conflict significantly reduced after the economic crisis in traditional media but increased in online media. At the same time, representations of nationalism in the news media seem to be taking alternative directions. The study challenges the way(s) in which media history is read in post-crisis societies experiencing conflict where the media play a significant role in assessing notions of togetherness as opposed to images of separatism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Economist is the only major news brand today that has remained true to the tradition of anonymity with which it was born in the mid-nineteenth century. As an exception, but also as a journalistic model admired and respected around the world, The Economist's long practice of anonymity, and the reasons that, at different times in its history, have led it to maintain that tradition, despite going against the tide, have interesting readings today from a journalistic perspective. At the same time, the analysis of how the publication has managed to relax, little by little, the no bylines rule in order to adapt to an era of increasing visibility and transparency, without losing the basic virtues of anonymity, serves as good example of the interest in managing in a strategic way personal and collective identities into the newsrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crisis of World War I, including the challenges of reporting from the fighting front, sparked public discussion about the reliability and status of journalism. In response, unprecedented changes to the education of journalists were introduced around the world, including in Australia. By the 1920s, the majority of Australian universities offered a Diploma in Journalism, developed in collaboration with the Australian Journalists' Association (AJA). Yet despite the AJA's commitment to developing professional standards, by 1945 these courses were either defunct or struggling. This article explores the introduction and subsequent failure of tertiary journalism education in the context of discussions within the AJA about educational 'relevance', and whether journalists required improved 'thinking' or improved 'skills'. Analysis of the establishment of these university courses highlights debates around the professionalism, status, and ethical practice of journalism in the interwar years, at a time when the newspaper industry was expanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]