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Description:

Ready to build that bookcase? Looks like you might need an explanatory essay... or five pages of vague instructions in Swedish.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

when you hear the names Charles Dickens and Jack London

00:06

you probably think novelist rather than journalist. or maybe you think [Dickens and London pictured]

00:10

motorcyclist. yes it depends how well you know them .but while it might be hard to

00:15

imagine any of the author's 800-page monsters being published in broadsheet.

00:20

their careers can definitely help us when it comes to understanding the

00:23

development of journalism. over the 19th century what we now know as modern

00:28

journalism started to take shape. cities were growing and literacy rates were [hands throw a clay pot]

00:32

rising so editors were racking their brains trying to come up with ways to

00:36

reach a broader cross-section of this suddenly more literate society.

00:40

well since chocolate newspapers never really took off editor's ended up going

00:44

with sensationalism. that his stories about scandals and crimes that appealed

00:50

to readers as a sort of guilty pleasure. sound familiar?

00:53

yeah good news is no news. in the u.s. cheap newspapers called penny presses [man reads newspaper]

00:58

were founded. and they covered the sensationalist stories that more

01:02

established news outlets wouldn't touch with a 10-foot Pole.

01:05

the British weren't left out of this sensationalist craze. on the other side

01:09

of the pond people like William Thomas Stead covered such lurid subjects as

01:14

child prostitution. well it's important to keep in mind that even though the [Stead shown in front of Big Ben]

01:18

subject matter was sensational it wasn't necessarily bad journalism, although

01:23

there were certainly some sickos reading Stead's work to lap up holographic

01:27

detail. that was pioneering investigative journalism- deeply investigating single

01:32

topics bringing them to a wider public understanding. well the fact that these

01:36

articles were published under sensational headlines like the violation [cows in a field]

01:40

of virgins and a child of 13 bought for five pounds

01:44

didn't make it any less serious. the dawn of investigative journalism for people

01:49

like dickens in london come in. they too were interested in exposing social ills

01:53

through deep investigations. though they fit right into this emerging

01:57

journalistic scene like a hand into a glove... anyway so maybe Dickens would have [crowded room in dim light]

02:03

put it more eloquently. anyway Dickens and London elevated writing styles that

02:07

wouldn't fly in contemporary newsrooms. although narrating in first person with

02:12

ornate complex language was par for the course among 19th century journalists,

02:17

temporary journalists strived for objectivity and prefer to go light on

02:21

all those adjectives and adverbs that novelists tend to like oh so very much.[man frowns from newsroom]

02:26

well, sure Dickens in London might be literary luminaries but hey, style guides

02:30

are style guides.

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