April 15, 1865 New York Herald's

[historybuff22]

(03-07-2013 03:39 PM)Linda Anderson Wrote:  

(03-07-2013 02:05 PM)Gene C Wrote:  Rick, How would you compare the quality of reporting back then to today, in regards to accuracy and grammar?
Were there newspaper equivelent to our grocery store tabloids?
Who were the most respected and influencial papers of the time?

Rick, another question I would like to add is which newspapers were pro-North and which were pro-South?

The biggest difference is the amount of coverage. Today, when a major news event happens, we are lucky if there are 300-500 words on the event and there are lots of "sound bites," e.g. "It was horrible." "It was awful," etc. For Lincoln's assassination, the typical length of the articles were 10,000 words or more. Eyewitness accounts ran 300-600 words each. For major battles of the Civil War, like Gettysburg, Bull Run, etc. they too contained 10,000 words or more. Even minor battles utilized a couple thousand words.

Back then, there were a few inaccurate reports. One example is that first reports of the Lincoln assassination also reported that Seward had been killed also. These inaccurate reports were primarily due to lack of technology for faster communication.

Of course, most newspapers in the North were pro-union and the South pro-confederacy. There were a few exceptions. The Crisis, printed in Ohio, was pro-confederacy as well as a Washington City newspaper. They called them Copperhead newspapers. I am not aware of any Southern newspapers that were pro-Union, but that doesn't mean that there were none.

See my new post in the Trivia category for a question about a first report of press coverage of the Lincoln assassination.

Rick Brown
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