Forming the public A critical history of journalism in the United States

This volume by Burham and Oates (both, Univ. of Iowa) offers a selective, critical analysis of the profession of journalism from the Revolutionary era to the 1970s and sometimes beyond. Interweaving mainstream and alternative representations of news stories and commentary, the authors view journalism as a means "to define the public and the public interest" as they cover early partisan, 19th-century commercial, industrial, and professionalizing presses. Their unique approach emphasizes struggles by "the poor, the dispossessed, the nonconformists, and the oppressed" with a liberal sprinkling of the actual verbiage employed. Here are accounts of the abolitionist, suffragist, anarchist, anti-segregationist, and anti-imperialist presses. Similarly, Forming the Public contains offerings by Latino activists, progressives, civil libertarians, civil rights proponents, and 1960s radicals of color, forming "counter publics." Highlights include discussions involving the Revolutionary press, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, the Grimke sisters, suffragists, Haymarket Square, Ida B. Wells, and the Anti-Imperialist League. More uniquely, Burham and Oates relate journalistic trials regarding La Raza, Walter Lippman, and Edward L. Bernays, the Second Red Scare, southern racism, the Black Panthers, the Young Lords, and the American Indian Movement. Counterbalancing traditional approaches, this thoughtful treatment is recommended for general and academic libraries. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty; professionals; general readers. --Robert C. Cottrell, emeritus, California State University, Chico