LS wrote:
--- by the 1880s, MOST papers were no longer "partisan" but were "fact-based" and tried to keep "editorial" and "news" separate. Codes of ethics were drawn up that prohibited rampant politicization of news.
There were exceptions (the "Yellow Press") but this was the norm until about 1960 when it started to change again.
BIG exception ----
- The New York Times - January 6, 1929
How Propoganda Works
PROPOGANDA
By Edward L. Bernays
The modern evolution in significance of the term that forms the title of Mr. Bernays's book are an example of how chameleon-like are words.
Originally applied to an institution of the Catholic Church, this term came down through the years in derived meaning, and finally, eight or ten years ago, stood for methods that had won public disapproval and contempt. And now, with the methods it implies being hauled out of the muck, scrubbed and varnished and classified in scientific bundles, it is taking on a modern, spruce, respectable and scientific significance.
Mr. Bernays, an outstanding student and practitioner of this newest branch of the social sciences, subjects it to a keen, far-seeing, cold-blooded inspection in this volume, and from this inspection he deduces some conclusions concerning its importance in present-day life and its many values. He even concludes the impossibility of carrying on without it the affairs of the modern world -- which make conservative people squirm a little.
But they, as well as others more up to date, ought to read through to the finish. For the author is wholly right in his insistence on the thoroughness with which propoganda methods have interwoven themselves into the fabric of our life, and it will be good for components of the mass mind to understand how they are being manipulated, while those who engage in the processes of manipulation will learn how to be successful in this new profession.
Mr. Bernays has a mind that is keen and quick in analysis, that delves and probes and classifies, and is equally vigorous and clear-sighted in practical application. He has had both theoretical and practical training in individual and mass psychology, and he has studied his subjects on all its sides and endeavored to visualize its possibilities. He discusses the new form that propoganda has taken, the form, substance and purpose that have made a branch of social science out of it, and the methods used by its practitioners. He also analyzes the principles of psychology that rule its methods. What propoganda does and what it can be made to do in business, politics, women's activities, social service and for the advancement of education, art and science are set forth in half a dozen or more chapters that are well worth the reading of anyone who wants to get a glimpse of what is going on behind the scenes.
Mr. Bernays believes that propoganda, rightly used, is not only an honorable, but a highly essential instrument in the organization of modern life. "Intelligent men," he concludes, "must realize that propoganda is the modern instrument by which they can fight for productive ends.