In Infamous Scribblers Eric Burns recounts the impact of colonial newspapers on early American culture. The author explains that since Boston's Public Occurrences newspaper of the 1690's, the founding fathers continuously made headlines and were subject to both character assassinations and outright fabrications.
Eric Burns is a freelance writer whose literary work has ranged from non-fiction and short stories to poetry and reviews. He is the author of The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco, The Spirits Of America: A Social History of Alcohol and Broadcast Blues: Dispatches from the Twenty-Year War Between a Television Reporter and His Medium.
Bio
Eric Burns
Eric Burns is a freelance writer whose literary work has ranged from non-fiction and short stories to poetry and reviews. He is the author of "The Smoke of the Gods: A Social History of Tobacco," "The Spirits Of America: A Social History of Alcohol" and "Broadcast Blues: Dispatches from the Twenty-Year War Between a Television Reporter and His Medium."
I was surprised by Burns's conclusion, in which he seems to excuse the lies of American colonial newspapers because they united the country and thus brought the Revolutionary War to a successful close sooner. Since Burns is a journalist, I would have expected him to argue that newspapers should be unbiased and factual at all costs.