Listening to the podcast “The BackStory: Fit to Print- A history of Fake News,” talk about the lies and deceit that in some ways the American people wanted is an astonishing phenomenon. The Sun Newspaper is a good example of this when the reporters deliberately printed untrue articles about the celestial planets and aliens. These articles are so outlandish yet internalizing it if I was in the citizen’s shoes at the first publication this idea could have been very confusing. In your mind, you may know it is not true, but before this, you have always trusted what is in the newspaper. This is where people at the time received most of their factual information.
The hosts of The BackStory also explain at this time of the beginning of the Penny Press and false publications within, P.T. Barnum began to emerge as a household name. This man made his entire empire on the base of lies and deceit. The people of the United States wanted to be fooled and if you could then they loved you for it. This may play into the idea of American culture as being deceitful and Americans wanting to be fooled.
Looking deeper into this idea of American culture and American history riddled with deceit you can see how this may be detrimental. The podcast goes on to talk about Slavery and this idea of deceit for entertainment. A man with a medical condition of Vitiligo is being sold off as an African American man who is turning white. This idea puts fear into many that this was even remotely possible and with this fear grew curiosity. Many people had come to examine this man and in the end, finances his life.
This story raises questions about what will happen if African Americans rise up just like the Americans did to the British. The British were not slaveholders of the Americans, unlike the Africans. The injustice and animalistic ownership of slaves puts an idea in America’s mind that if slaves had the chance they will hurt everyone. Now, that this line of black and white can be crossed it may be very hard to enforce superior identity.
Love your idea of blogging about “fake news”. If only the concept was an easy one to decipher. Not only did I read this post. I ever went back and listened to the pod cast in the hopes of defining what this “fake news” is. When you consider some of the topics discussed in this podcast its a reminder of what draws Americans to reality TV. Almost as if its a part of our DNA to seek a bit of satire. It seems though, blurred are the lines between what was comical/ political theater of the Roman Empire and historic reality of more modern times. An interesting question placed here is, is it a good or bad thing that we are alive to witness just how far this filtration of fact and funny will go.
I think the idea of yellow journalism is very relevant to the national conversation these days. What I ponder is whether or not we will be able to re-form our trust in media and the press — if we SHOULD be putting our trust in them. Our experiences and what we consider fact greatly shapes our actions, which is scary when you consider how much of our viewoint is derived from the media. A look into the past is perhaps what we need to proceed to the future.
I think you made a really good connection between “fake news” and the the history of racism in America. The deceitful stories were entertainment at the expense of someone being exploited, like the example you gave. This helps me really think about what I see in the news, blogs and other forms of media and the person on the other side of the story. I think as Public Historians, this is one of jobs to help break down the barriers that have been put up in history’s past and to help tell the story’s of the people on the other side. Thank you for the insight!!!
This is not something that people are aware in many cases. In some environments of our “Free Nation” it is not something you would feel necessarily safe talking about either. Just like Glory said, “Yellow journalism is very relevant,” and can change the public view of a subject. In this case we are talking about racism but look at how much was brought up about the Hillary Clinton scandal regarding emails sent on a private server. I won’t go too much into that but it shows how quickly something that can be resolved can be turned so dramatically around. I guess it is all food for thought, but it’s worth taking in and digesting it for what it is. Relevant conversations and outreach need to continue in order for progress to be made on these issues.
I agree about the connection between ‘fake news’ and the history of exploitation of others. In my opinion, P.T Barnum and others did a great deal of harm to social progress in the 19th century. Under the guise of informing — AND — entertaining the public on other cultures and those born with genetic particularities, these entertainers actually seemed to have borne out something of a dystopic Darwinian nightmare. To them it would seem the foreign and exotic are subjects of extortion and cultural domination by making them sources of entertainment. It isn’t hard to spot the connection between those systems of thought and those ideas flying around and dominating American political discourse in 2018.