It's All Fake News! (Blogpost 7)


Journalism – some people hate it and some people love it. While some people deem certain newspapers, tabloids, magazines, and newspapers to be “fake news”, some can’t wait to get their hands on a copy of the latest celebrity gossip.  The same could be said for those in the 18th century. They found these news sources to be part of their daily life.

Sir Richard Steele (1672 - 1729)
Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719)
During this time, Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele were the primary proponents of The Spectator, a daily gazette that ran from March 1711 to December 1712. According to the Norton Anthology, The Spectator included writings that focused on “… good manners, daily happenings in London, going to church, shopping, investing in the stock market, the fascinations of trade and commerce, proper gender roles and relations, the personality types found in society, the town’s offerings of high and low entertainment, tastes in literature and luxury goods, [and] philosophical speculations” (NA 2640).

Considering that these topics were covered in this gazette, it is easy to understand why The Spectator would be popular amongst readers. Even the name, itself, gives hints at what was included within the gazette. According to the Norton Anthology, “[i]n The Spectator, Steele and Addison set out to break down the distinction between educating their readers and entertaining them…” (NA 2640). In my opinion, journalism has not really changed in the years since Addison and Steele. The primary reason for this is because of the readership and their fascination with the latest big news stories and gossip. We live in a society in which people are always interested in what the other is doing. Due to this, journalists know what stories will catch our attention as readers. Thus, we continue to read the sources of information.


In my own writing, there is not much of a difference between things that I write for the public versus what I write for academia. As an English major, whenever I write (even if it is a simple Facebook status update or Tweet) I make sure that there are no grammatical errors. I am, honestly, glad that Facebook has an edit option for updates because, in the past, I have found myself completely deleting a post and re-writing it because of a misspelled word, or excessive wordiness. I guess this is always going to be ingrained in me. Who knows? Only time will tell.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JUST. LET. ME. WRITE! (Blogpost 6)

Image
All English majors should read The Anonymous Lady’s “On Being Charged with Writing Incorrectly” ! Trust me, you will relate to her argument. Okay, so maybe not all English majors will relate to her argument, but most will. What constitutes “correct” writing? Does the answer lie within the grammaticism? Is the answer found in the word choice and style? Can the answer be found in correct punctuation, excellent examples, and vivid imagery? For some, the answer to these questions, and others of this same nature would be a resounding “yes”. However, for the Anonymous Lady (a.k.a. the Amorous Lady), the answer would, indefinitely, be “no”. The Anonymous Lady published poems which were included in “The Barbados Gazette”. Very little is known about her, hence the name, but what scholars have gathered is that she was probably a well-known London poet whose work was prevalent during the 1720’s. Her poetry challenged the restrictions placed on her by male writers and in her works, she
Read more

Reaping the Benefits of the Enlightenment Period (Blogpost 1)

Image
Imagine that you are living in a time where you were expected to maintain staunch devotion to religion and to endure unethical treatment from those in authority. Imagine a time that theaters were closed and it was forbidden to participate in science, logic, and reasoning, which were all deemed as heretical. My point is that life, in this way, according to these constructs, is hard to imagine, right? Well, that is exactly the way that life was prior to the 1600s, which marked the beginning of the Restoration period.  There was no push for personal liberties and rights, which left the majority of the people feeling hopeless and in despair. Also, society was based on a hierarchical structure that differentiated between the affluent and the beggarly. Independent thought was not only poorly celebrated and disregarded but, on certain accounts, was punishable by death. Anything that differentiated from what the Church taught was not easily promoted, causing the masses to fear religion an
Read more