Civil War and the Press

The North supported the war mainly due to their objection against slavery. The journalism in the North talked a lot about defeating the Confederate states. The newspapers in the North was “exaggerating Union victories and minimizing Union defeats.” This shows how much the North relied on journalism to report the details relating to the war. Everything about the war mattered to the North, so they spent a lot of time making critical analysis concerning the war. Some of the North’s journalist publications were the “Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Washington Morning Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Springfield Republican.” Since the journalists were interested so much in the war, they spent a lot of their time reporting from the war fronts. For example, Samuel Wilkeson describes wearing the same flannel shirt for five weeks. Many reporters went through the hardships and dangers of the war as well as many being killed and captured.

           

Journalism in the South was not so much about the war. The South reported more on the opposition against the war and advocated for slavery. They wanted the right to decide whether they would be a slave state or not. The newspapers in the South were more focused in reporting about their support for the Confederate administration and “repeatedly defended the president from critics.” They also “emphasized Union problems and explained the consequences of the defeat.” Since the war was not the focus of newspapers in the South, it led many editors to be very critical of the Confederate government. Some of the editors complained about the Confederate president who was Jefferson Davis and felt like other Confederate leaders would be a suitable president. It is also interesting to know that the North was able to include a lot of illustrations and photographs in their newspapers since they were mostly reporting from the war fronts. Whereas, the newspapers in the South had fewer images and magazines, since their news did not focus so much on the war.

Journalists in both the North and the South were very outspoken and wanted their opinions to be heard. But the journalists seemed to be a threat for the political leaders and the government. This was a problem both in the North and the South. They feared that the journalists would expose confidential information and secrets that would hurt the government or cause them to lose the war, whether North or South. This is why it led the governments in the North and the South to establish censorship which restricted journalists on the things they could publish and the things they could not. During this time there was very little protection for journalists, so they experienced a lot of backlash. This tells us that the fight for a free press has always been an issue. But in today’s world there are more rights that protect journalists from being miss treated by the government and they have the right to freely expression themselves as they please.

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