Journalism as an Anglo-American Invention

Abstract

This article argues that journalism is an Anglo-American invention. The argument is developed comparing the evolution of French and Anglo-American journalism between the 1830s and the 1920s. It is claimed that American and British journalists invented the modern conception of news, that Anglo-American newspapers contained more news and information than any contemporary French paper and that they had much better organized news-gathering services. Proper journalistic discursive practices, such as reporting and interviewing, were also invented and developed by American journalists. French journalists, like journalists in many other countries, progressively imported and adapted the methods of Anglo-American journalism. This article also attempts to spell out the cultural, political, economic, linguistic and international factors which favoured the emergence of journalism in England and the United States. Journalism could develop more rapidly in these two countries because of the independence of the press from the literary field, parliamentary bipartism, the ability of newspapers to derive substantial revenues from sales and advertising, the dynamics of the English language and because of the Anglo-Saxon central and dominant position in the world.

Reporting and the transformations of the journalistic field: US news media, 1890-2000

“…I suggest following Chalaby (1996) that rather what we see is the rise of a partially autonomous journalistic field organized around a specific textual form and specific practices, most prominently active news-gathering. Journalistic values of objectivity and public service arose as a set of stakes, which motivate practice independently of power and money; as stakes, however, they remain also an object of contestation and competition.…”

“…What follows builds on studies of specific transformations within journalism and specific media (Hallin 1996;Kaplan 2002;Schudson 1978;Chalaby 1996Chalaby , 1998Wallace 2005), the history of communication more broadly by Starr (2004), and other published evidence to consider the case of the United States. This historical approach allows us to turn the contingent and historical origins of journalism itself into objects of analysis.…”

“…However, as Chalaby has pointed out, there is a danger of anachronism in using the term 'journalism' to describe these early practices (Chalaby 1996). Journalism is less and more than what actors identified as 'the media' through a modern lens do.…”

“…Following Bourdieu (1995) and Chalaby (1996Chalaby ( , 1998, I situate the evolution of journalistic ideals in the emergence of a relatively autonomous field around the 1860s and 1870s.…”

The moment of Leveson: Beyond ‘First Amendment fundamentalism’ in news regulatory policies

“…Of course, all the above assumes what Chalaby (1996) has christened the 'Anglo-American invention' of objective journalism. As Hallin and Mancini (2004) have elaborated, in many European journalistic traditions partisanship has been the norm, albeit now generally yielding to the Anglo-American model.…”