Newspapers and Journalism: Wordy, Worthy and Dull
Despite the new technology, most newspapers in Britain had been really dull. On 28 January 1855, for instance, the most prestigious from the British papers, The Times, printed a parliamentary report that ran to 30 columns – 61,500 worthy but turgid words. Things had been much much more exciting in the United States, where newspapers had been entering a new stage in their evolution. The man behind the impetus was James Gordon Bennett, a Scottish emigre who founded the New York Herald in 1835. Of all nations, the United States was then the stuffiest and most prudish. Legs were called ‘branches of the body’; shirts were ‘linen’ and trousers ‘inexpressibles’. More intimate garments, for example petticoats, could not be referred to at all.
Bennett threw convention to the wind. ‘Petticoats, petticoats, petticoats,’ ranted one editorial. ‘There you fastidious fools, vent your mawkishness on that.’ He did all that was forbidden. Whereas other papers covered murder trials, he wrote up the murders. Others reported the stock market, he revealed financial frauds. Rivals shrank from relating the activities of high society. He described the heave of every bosom. He realized that individuals wanted not just information but entertainment. Circulation rose with each and every headline – on one occasion by 10,000 overnight. In 1840, the Herald was selling 51,000 copies daily. By comparison, The Times, with sales of no more than 30,000, looked decidedly feeble.
