Journalist in Silent Film 35 The Image of the Journalist in Silent Film, 1890 to 1929: Part One 1890 to 1919 Joe Saltzman Professor of Journalism Director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC) A Project of the Norman Lear Center Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA
[email protected] with Liz Mitchell Senior Research Associate Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC) Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA
[email protected] Introduction This is the first installment in the landmark study of “The Image of the Journalist in Silent Film, 1890 to 1929.” It covers 1,948 films from 1890 to 1919. Part Two will cover the years from 1920 to the beginning of recorded sound in 1929. This is the first comprehensive study of the beginning of cinema’s earliest depictions of the journalist, mostly newspaper reporters, editors, and publishers. Newspaper fiction flourished at a time when journalism “was a revolutionary force, tearing up traditions, redefining public morality, and lending voice and encouragement to the disenfranchised. It reflected currents sweeping through every phase of American life. The skyrocketing circulations, the manic search for exclusive news, the sensational headlines, and the concentration of newspaper ownership were signs of an America changing from a rural society to an urban and industrial one. Since journalism so clearly mirrored and so loudly supported the new order, it became the preeminent symbol for the mechanization, standardization, democratization, and vulgarization of culture.”1 Historian Howard Good points out that the 1890s “represented a watershed not only in American journalism but also in American history.