These correspondents sent their stories over the telegraph wires.
The wires provided a way to quickly get stories directly to the
newspapers.
At first, stories were written in chronological order, with the
oldest news first. Because telegraph lines were frequently
cut by soldiers, news story writing began to change.
The lead of the story became the most important part, with the
story written in Inverted Pyramid Style.
War maps and drawings were used in newspapers, but there
was no way to publish photographs for almost 40 more
years.
Although none of his photos were printed in newspapers, a famous photographer during the Civil War was
Mathew Brady.
Brady convinced President Lincoln to let him go anywhere during the war to make pictures. Although the government didn’t pay any of his expenses, Brady
used his entire savings to finance his trips.
Brady’s work is one reason we know the reality of the war. His camera served as the eyes of the
country.
The Spanish-American War is said to have come about
because of the newspaper
competition between Pulitzer and Hearst.
Hearst had heard that there were concentration camps in Cuba,
run by the Spanish, where people were mistreated. He sent a
reporter and an artist to Cuba to cover what was happening.
One of the artists wired Hearst that everything was just a rumor,
there was really no war or problem.
Hearst wired back, “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the
war.”
Congress demanded that Spain leave Cuba and the U.S. went to
war with Spain.Historians agree that the war was
helped along by newspapers.
The U.S. wanted to remain neutral, since the population was made up of many different ethnic
groups.
Although the U.S. was not involved in the war at first, submarine attacks by the
Germans stirred the press to demand action to avenge
America.
Then U.S. newspapers published an intercepted message from
Germany to Mexico. In the message, the states of Arizona,
New Mexico and Texas were offered to Mexico in return for attacking the U.S.
Stirred by the newspapers, the public supported the American declaration of war on Germany,
putting the U.S. intoWorld War I.
The main reason was the war correspondents. Direct battlefield reports came from radio and over
the wire.
The best-known correspondent was Ernie Pyle. He wrote a
weekly column read all over the U.S., for which he won a Pulitzer
Prize.
Television was now part of the media, but graphic coverage was
not shown.Korean War news was reported
by newsmen with little footage of the action on the battlefield.
Families would come home at the end of the day, turn on the news and watch full graphic content of
the battlefields.This either made people support the war or turned them totally
against it.
The end of the Vietnam War was covered with much fanfare by the media. Cameras showed returning
soldiers reuniting with families and other happy moments.
Media coverage of the first Gulf War was better than any coverage
up to that time. Not only could the war be seen any time of night or day on CNN, but newspaper coverage was more complete.
The media focused on the human side to fighting the war – lots of
features on the pilots who did the bombings, how the average soldier felt about leaving his
family, etc.
Thanks to CNN, the public was even in the cockpit when bombs were dropped, bringing this war
closer to home.
In the second Gulf War, war correspondents were embedded with troops for the first time in
history so coverage was complete and timely.