Abstract
Following up his previous book on the history of journalism, Mightier Than the Sword, now in its fourth edition, Rodger Streitmatter has written another set of case studies dealing with how the media has influenced American history. This time, though, Streitmatter focuses solely on instances when journalists have, as the subtitle indicates, propelled positive change. In his introduction, Streitmatter considers this usage “appealingly vague,” providing him with “a wonderful degree of latitude in the topics” covered. While it’s tempting to devote an inordinate amount of time assessing the problematic rhetoric of this cringe-worthy turn of phrase, the book’s content and structure warrant attention on their own.
The chapters range from the late 19th century, beginning with Nellie Bly’s undercover exposé of mental health facilities in New York City, to today’s world, concluding with pieces on media coverage of the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal and Ellen DeGeneres’s coming out. In between, we find accounts of how journalism, to select but a few examples, brought down Charles Ponzi’s financial scam; caution against the dangers of smoking; celebrate the first Jewish Miss America; and popularize the availability and benefits of birth control. Chapters flow by in a relatively brisk pace as all 16 of them, plus the conclusion, clock in at 177 written pages, excluding notes, bibliography, and index.
Meanwhile, no more than three pages elapse at any time throughout the book without extra spacing and a newly titled section break. Chapter 9, for instance, traces the media’s praise for Jackie Robinson, who in 1947 broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, with the following subheadings on three consecutive pages: “Portraying Jackie Robinson as Humble,” “Portraying Jackie Robinson as Congenial,” and “Portraying Jackie Robinson as Wholesome.” Rather than providing a consistent, coherent synthesis in each essay by weaving through the primary news accounts of the day, Streitmatter distracts from the flow of each chapter, short as they are, with many section breaks. He effectively provides examples that prove the subhead titles, mind you, but the book sacrifices depth in such a discontinuous manner and, ultimately, fails to craft carefully constructed arguments.
To his credit, Streitmatter, a professor of journalism at American University, focuses on events often neglected in history courses and case studies of journalistic practice that many readers, scholars included, might not be too familiar with. Some of the more novel work in the book include chapters devoted to how African American newspapers in the early 20th century helped spur the great migration of subjugated persons away from the South; the publicity arm of the Justice Department under J. Edgar Hoover, which recruited journalists to portray the heroics of G-Men in the 1930s; and the degree to which television news facilitated democratic changes to the presidential nomination process.
Streitmatter also addresses news coverage of migrant farmworkers—which, as he deftly observes, failed to produce positive change—as well as media support for securing reparations for interned Japanese Americans. “[T]his effort to make America a better place to live,” he writes in the conclusion, “involved [the media] seeing that some of the most vulnerable members of society weren’t mistreated but were allowed to enjoy the quality of life that other citizens were experiencing.”
In addition to exploring how journalists have engaged exploited or underrepresented groups in American history, the book’s main strength features a series of choice news accounts, from 19th-century newspapers to modern television shows. This is especially true in Chapter 7, highlighting the glowing treatment with which newspapers initially supported cigarettes. “I am always glad to see the poor man or the poor child smoking,” Streitmatter quotes from a 1904 interview published in the Milwaukee Sentinel, “For not only is he preparing for himself a happy old age, but he is not likely to swell the list of criminal classes.” The striking images included in Chapter 2 from an early photojournalist, Jacob Riis, whose work on the enmeshed poverty in urban slums led to reforms instituted by President Theodore Roosevelt, serve as effective examples of influential media.
Still, the book cannot be endorsed from a scholarly or pedagogical perspective, and this assessment is reached with ambivalence, if not reluctance. Not only have I cited Streitmatter’s Mightier Than the Sword in my own research, I’ve assigned the book for 5 consecutive years in courses at two different institutions now, and the enthusiastic response from students is nothing short of terrific. My highest marks in teaching evaluations are consistently from journalism history courses, and this owes in no small part to the engaging and thorough text. I even assign a research paper tasking students with writing a new chapter for the book, using Streitmatter as a model, and some of the best undergraduate student work I encounter are inspired by Mightier. The lesser papers from that class, unfortunately, typically read like chapters in A Force for Good. Instead of crafting an argument demonstrating how the news media influenced an event in American history, those papers, like the present book, are not fully developed and rely on questionable causal claims.
Would that each chapter expand to go beyond surface-level snapshots of media moments and capture the depth of structural issues in journalism and the cultural phenomena Streitmatter wishes to engage, the book might evince more utility as a course text or a stand-alone work of scholarship. As is, however, A Force for Good is but a poor facsimile of the author’s earlier work.