
Infamous Scribblers
The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism
Eric Burns(Author)
PublicAffairs,U.S. (Publisher)
Published on 13. February 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
480 pages
978-1-58648-428-6 (ISBN)
Description
Infamous Scribblers is a perceptive and witty exploration of the most volatile period in the history of the American press. News correspondent and renonwned media historian Eric Burns tells of Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and Sam Adams,the leading journalists among the Founding Fathers of George Washington and John Adams, the leading disdainers of journalists and Thomas Jefferson, the leading manipulator of journalists. These men and the writers who abused and praised them in print (there was, at the time, no job description of "journalist") included the incendiary James Franklin, Ben's brother and one of the first muckrakers the high minded Thomas Paine the hatchet man James Callender, and a rebellious crowd of propagandists, pamphleteers, and publishers. It was Washington who gave this book its title. He once wrote of his dismay at being "buffited in the public prints by a set of infamous scribblers." The journalism of the era was often partisan, fabricated, overheated, scandalous, sensationalistic and sometimes stirring, brilliant, and indispensable. Despite its flaws,even because of some of them,the participants hashed out publicly the issues that would lead America to declare its independence and, after the war, to determine what sort of nation it would be.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Paperback (UK-trade)
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
653 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-58648-428-6 (9781586484286)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
02/2007
PublicAffairs
€9.49
Available for download
Person
Eric Burns is the host of Fox News Channel's "Fox News Watch." A former NBC News correspondent, Burns was named one of the best writers in the history of broadcast journalism by the Washington Journalism Review. He is also an Emmy winner for media criticism. He is the author of four previous books his The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol, was named one of the best academic press volumes of 2003 by the American Library Association.