A Narrative History of the American Press uses the tools of reporters and historians to re-create and interpret a compelling narrative of press, media, and communication history for today’s students. While providing a new understanding of personalities and events by closely examining primary sources, this book also looks at the development of American press with the insight of scholars who have studied it.

The individual chapters you will read in this book stem from lectures I have delivered for more than a decade in the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). As a media historian, I have headed dozens of semesters of classes for both undergraduate and graduate students that focus on the history of journalism. The people, events, developments, and concepts found in this book in most cases came straight from lecture materials and the written work of students, and they now compose a text for use by other instructors and students alike.

A Narrative History of the American Press will help develop an understanding of the role of the press in the United States, as well as in world history. Although the book does not focus on current events, readers will use the tools of both reporters and historians to help understand the present through the past. Using a historiographical approach to interpret texts, students will find ways to develop an intellectual framework for understanding the materials featured in this book. Instead of interpreting sources on a cursory level from a contemporary perspective, this book seeks to understand primary sources in the context in which writers produced them. Using the techniques of reporters and historians alike to ask the questions of “who,” “what,” “where,” “when,” “how,” and “why,” this book also seeks an answer to the question “so what?”

While focusing on American news, A Narrative History of the American Press also features material from media other than print newspapers alone. Texts about the history of journalism have tended to focus on only American newspapers, and when they do, they often use multiple authors to contribute to the text. A defining feature of this book is its integration of multimedia (public relations, advertising, broadcast, and the Internet), focusing on the story of the American press to build a singular narrative for a wide audience. … While the other textbooks on the subject provide useful individual accounts of the development of areas of the media, A Narrative History of the American Press incorporates brief biographies of important media figures, first-person accounts from professional press practitioners, and primary materials to keep students engrossed in the content. It also demonstrates the importance of the First Amendment as an integral aspect of press development.

Please visit the publisher’s online listing for this book at www.routledge.com/9781138998469 to find supplemental eResource material, including a wealth of primary and secondary multi-media sources, review questions, and interactive exercises.

Gregory A. Borchard, a Professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), USA, teaches courses for the Hank Greenspun School of Journalism and Media Studies in journalism history, reporting, and research methods. Borchard’s previous books include Lincoln Mediated: The President and the Press through Nineteenth-Century Media (Routledge, 2015), Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley (2011), and Journalism in the Civil War Era (2010).