Infamous scribblers

What Hacker News says

1. cbozemanJan 2021
   > Selection bias.

   Check out the book Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism.

   > I'd think that's how people you happen to hang out with, or talk with on the internet, might be.

   You literally have no data to support that comment, whereas I'm referencing existing documents throughout American history that show just how vitriolic communications were.

   You realize that our politicians used to get into fistfights on the floor of Congress, right?

   > But not people in general, at least not the ones I've met from the US (lots of people).

   What you've just described is selection bias, but I understand why would you feel that way. You're likely not exposed to a diverse selection of Americans. Do you know many corn farmers from the Midwest states? Do you know any deep sea welders from Mississippi? Do you know many club promoters from California? Do you know many book editors from New York?

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2. tdeckSep 2020
   Most of the comments here are missing a big part of the context: newspapers in the early 1800s didn't do journalism as we know it today. Most relied entirely on rumors and letters that crossed their desk, combined with cribbing old stories from the foreign press. Newspaper staff was often just one or two people doing the writing, marketing, and distribution (and often the typesetting too). There wasn't this idea that a journalist should be conducting interviews or investigating stories or even arriving at the scene of anything. Most papers were funded largely by political patronage as well.

   For a great book on the history of American journalism I recommend "Infamous Scribblers" by Eric Burns.

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