Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States [Hardcover]

How does one even begin to open a scholarly discussion of news media bias in a landscape that has become so proliferated with bias that it now has its own category, 'partisan journalism'? This is the challenge for educators and students, and Kuypers starts by leading readers through the highly partisan roots of US newspapers' initial popularity surge (in the 1820s). He shows how the party presses of the medium's nascent days were not unlike Fox News or MSNBC today. (Objectivity, one learns, arose from scientific empiricism and good business: a practical, inoffensive way to serve large, diverse audiences.) Kuypers's clearheaded, highly insightful, and deeply researched volume takes the reader through all the ages of US journalism--through wars, presidents, and the ebb and flow of various media platforms. He even devotes a full chapter to the rise of alternative media. Partisan Journalism, which culminates with a chapter titled 'The 2010 and 2012 Elections,' is an extremely valuable and highly readable resource. Kuypers's examination is thorough, historically potent, and enlightening. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.A major strength of this book is the sheer volume of data to back up his claims.... [I]t is very good scholarship.In Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States, Jim Kuypers has written one of those rare books that is designed to actually stimulate thought among scholars, news professionals and the news reading/viewing (and now tweeting and blogging) public. His analysis of the origins, rise, variations and modern incarnations of the partisan press is both scrupulously detailed and wittily pointed. More than just a history or a critique, Kuypers explains and contextualizes events, ideas and people who shaped our modern media world. The book willI hopeincite controversy and counter-argument and thus spur a renewed debate on what constitutes a free and fair press in a representative republic.In Partisan Journalism, KuyperslS.