EOTO 1 Reflection

     While watching the presentations in class, I was very intrigued to learn about the different aspects of journalism history. I think each group did a great job of presenting their information clearly and with a lot of detail to make it more interesting. In this blog post, I want to reflect on what I learned from these presentations and what I found interesting about them.

    During this class session, I was most intrigued to learn about political cartoons. From this presentation, I learned that the purpose of a political cartoon is to combine both art and politics as a form of satire to lend a satirical voice to those that are displeased with how the government handles certain situations. In these cartoons, cartoonists use things like metaphors and caricatures with humorous images to shed light on serious or more complicated political situations. I also learned that some of the most commonly used techniques to create a political cartoon are symbolism, exaggeration, labeling, analogy, and irony. I also learned that the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, also called the AAEC, is a group of political cartoonist members who aim to protect the right to keep creating them and that they deem their cartoons as a crucial form of expression. 

    In the past I've learned a little bit about political cartoons. There was a time in high school history when we focused a lot on political cartoons and it was a really big part of our curriculum, which is why I liked this presentation so much, it was something I'm familiar with but I was still able to learn a few new things. Some important figures in the world of political cartooning that the presenters mentioned during their presentation were Ben Franklin, George Townshend, James Gillary, George Cruikshank, John Tenniel, and a few more. I also really appreciated that in their presentation they included some examples of political cartoons and explained their significance, I thought this was a great way to emphasize what political cartoons are really for and how people perceive them.

    My favorite part of the presentation was at the very end when one of the presenters put a political cartoon on the screen and analyzed it using a reference to something Professor Smith said in one of our initial classes. This was a really great way to tie everything together and help the class think deeper on the meaning of political cartoons. 

    Another presentation that interested me was the presentation about the San Francisco Examiner and New York Journal. starting with the San Francisco Examiner, it first began after the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. The paper originally started as a democratic paper with pro-slavery and anti-Lincoln views. It wasn't until after Lincoln's death that the paper switched to become The Daily Examiner in 1865 with more republican and anti-slavery viewpoints as a result of the original paper being destroyed by a pro Lincoln mob. This was the most intriguing part of the presentation to me because I think this turn in direction shows how ever changing news is, it's important to never get comfortable in this industry because things can switch very quickly. 

    I also learned from this presentation that the Examiner has won two Pulitzer Prizes (the highest level of recognition in journalism) and has grown to become a very popular paper with many loyal readers. The paper was previously owned by William Randolph Hearst, a businessman who was best known for his role in yellow journalism, after his father, George Hearst, owned the paper before he did. Now, the paper is owned by a team of people under the jurisdiction of Clint Reilly Communications after William died in 2004. 

    Also in this presentation, they talked about The New York Journal. This ties into The San Francisco Examiner because both papers were previously owned by Hearst. This paper was in constant competition with The New York World (the paper that Nellie Bly worked for if you're curious to read about her in one of my more recent blog posts!). In this paper, Hearst used exaggerated cartoons and sensationalized stories with false information to keep people hooked on the paper. I found this part of the presentation very interesting because it reminded of a movie I watched in my high school journalism class senior year where a reporter made the very same mistake. The film was called Shattered Glass (2003). The movie is about renowned reporter, Stephen Glass, who wrote for The New Republic, a paper known for creating a foundation for young talented writers. In this film, we soon found out that he had fabricated almost all of the stories he wrote after making a mistake in website formatting for his last story run by The New Republic. At the end of the movie, Glass lost everything and was stripped of his career as a reporter. This is immediately what my mind went to while hearing this presentation and I thought that the same thing might happen to Hearst with how he was running The New York Journal. However, after hearing more from the presentation and doing a little research on my own, I realized that what Hearst was doing is just the basis of yellow journalism, using crude exaggerations and sensationalism to create a story. A common topic for Hearst was to bully the government to declare war in his stories and he never did see the same fate that Stephen Glass did.