Important 🧵:
I got a lesson in this recently from a student looking for a specific paper from Mississippi. It was started shortly after end of the Civil War by a local businessman featuring editorials about the "unfair depiction of race relations in the South by northern newspapers."
As terrible as what is happening right now to journalism, we actually should dismantle the romantic myths we have of the press in America.
I teach in my class about colonial press censorship, and then how the independent press was a tool for the wealthy, white power holders to maintain dominance.
