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The Dem Party CREATED the "biased, partisan" media in the 1820s as a means to elect Dems. The party bought and started papers and hired shills to be the editors. They were creations entirely of the Dem Party. Maybe to this day that is why they cannot separate themselves from the Dems.

In the Civil War they started to become "objective" and adopted standards of fairness and balance, and this held (with some big exceptions) for about 90 years.

This history is interesting to me. It's important to note as well, that the Democratic Party has changed over that time - and, to some extent, the Republican Party (which IIRC only started in the 1850s) has changed as well.
Was the socialist impulse present in the antebellum, antiabolitionist, Democratic Party? I recall seeing a Lincoln quote which was antisocialist in coloration, and remember that Karl Marx was proabolitionist and therefore more antipathetic to the South during the war.
My theory of the evolution of word meanings is that the arrogant class - socialists and mainstream writers - appropriate words as euphemisms for beliefs that they adhere to be understand to be impolitic to say.
Thus tyranny, which might be called "governmentism," was given a word of its own - "social"ism - to mask its actual implications. We "conservatives" have learned to check our wallets when we hear the word "social," but its denotation is actually what we talk about - markets are social, for example. Likewise "public" - as in "public sector" ("all levels of government") and "public school" ("government school"). And the word "liberal," which meant (and still outside the US does mean) "of liberty," now means what I like to call "governmentist."
I confess an inability to see how those meaning changes could have ocurred without a predominant impetus from the PR establishment.
The term "objective" can, if applied to one's own self, only be self-deceptive or duplicitous - since it is not objective but arrogant to claim, and to argue from a claim of, superior objectivity (or superiority of wisdom, or of any other virtue).

Was the socialist impulse present in the antebellum, antiabolitionist, Democratic Party?

I haven't done the research, but it's my gut feeling there wasn't much difference in the TWO parties until, say, the New Deal. I couldn't begin to lay out what their platforms were in the 40's to the early 50's. It's just an impression but I believe Dims and Pubbies would both be what we conservatives consider patriotic back then; statesmen even. Did the socialisms of the New Deal strike the Dims' fancy or were they not on board until the late 60's - early 70's?

Based on conversations LS and I have had, there was still an antagonistic press re New Deal policies, BUT they may not have been the dominant press then. Just how loud were the conservative media voices? Were they a minority press even then? Is this when our media cheerleaders pulled up lame ;^) So many questions...

I confess an inability to see how those meaning changes could have ocurred without a predominant impetus from the PR establishment.

Agreed. In fact one of the tools of the Goebbelist is word manipulaton and especially labeling. The short cousin to the juicy sound bite. Doesn't matter if it's made from whole cloth, and it usually is. Abortion RIGHTS anyone? "Affirmative Action"? Our constitution is a living document? Anyway, good points.

FGS

Well, there are a handful of historians (Sean Wilentz) who are trying desperately to resurrect the Democrats in the antebellum period as a party of "reform" too---pretty hard to do when you are the party of slavery, rebellion, and patronage.

Of course, you can always find an exception in either party.

Let me review the origins of the Dem Party: after the Missouri Comp., Martin Van Buren wanted to cobble together a national organization that would prevent a Civil War by excluding slavery from the national debate. His party, the Dems, relied on $$, or patronage, to shut people up. If you joined their party, you were rewarded for getting out the vote so long as you never brought up slavery in elected office or in your papers.

Ditto with the Dem papers. They were to toe the line 100%.

Now, when I use the term "objective," this isn't just, "Well, you have your view of objective and I have mine." It meant something specific, namely a commitment to excluding "value judgments" and ONLY going with facts. Take today's economic news, for ex.: the 1870s papers would be reporting this as TREMENDOUS news because they would only be reporting the facts of the economic growth, NOT the potential "dangers" and "warning signs" that never seem to materialize. To guarantee they got just facts, they established a rigid code of ethics in about 1910, including multiple valid sourcing, "getting the other side of the story," and only printing what they could prove. (That lets out 90% of modern reporting---are you listening Dan Rather?)

The danger is that all this was done in a "value-free" environment which presumed there was ALWAYS "another side of the story." Now, few reporters really believed that until the 1960s. Most still believed in God, and truth, and loved America. But once that changed, the impetus to "get the other side of the story" metastisized into a notion that you have to listen to demonic figures like Saddam or Bin Laden with the same credibility as you give Bush.