Chapter Five - From News Writers to Journalists: An Emerging Profession?

Summary

Introduction

Who wrote the news? What sort of person committed to regular publication on contemporary events? A committed believer in a cause? A servant to democracy? A hired pen? Geopolitically, the exchange of personnel and publications between the centres of Edinburgh, Dublin and London provided a showcase for the talents of a variety of writers who would shape the practice of journalism as well as building expectations among readers of various stylistic approaches to informing a public. During the period covered by this chapter, we move from absolute censorship, through a period during the Civil War of almost anarchic if still dangerous liberty, back through a period of strict licensing and control, to the emergence of a press without pre-publication censorship. Persecution post-publication was nevertheless still in evidence as the crystallisation of roles within periodicals began to shape the contours of modern journalism: foreign correspondents, editors, reviewers, cultural commentators and dedicated political reporters. The eighteenth century saw the first flowering of the review style of journalism in the work of Swift, Addison and Steele, as well as the very different, politically engaged interventions of the Jacobite Nathaniel Mist or the anonymous tradition of political commentary by letter in the case of Cato, while Johnson further developed a learned, aphoristic cultural commentary in the mid-century. In terms of timing, full-time professional writers specialising in news moved from weekly contributions towards more regular columns on daily newspapers towards the century's end. The generic variety of these writers, from ‘hacks’ to professionals, from scurrilous outsiders to pillars of the commercial establishment, demonstrates the contradictory beginnings of the figure of the journalist, which continue to shape the long-term content and expectations of the genre. Moreover, each writerly variation attempted, in effect, an experiment with the tolerance or expectations of audience.

Varieties of Public Address

It has often been observed that the plethora of labels attempting to identify the work of early news writers was indicative of the complexity as well as the novelty of their undertaking. Working within extraordinarily challenging political circumstances, facing censorship, fines and physical punishment, they were nevertheless embarked on an expanding and profitable commercial enterprise.