When did "the news" flip to propaganda?

1920's?

It may have started to flip a little with Clinton, but it crossed the Rubicon in 2008 with Obama.

it always has been

FOX News was created in 1996.

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FOX News was created in 1996.

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Jeezus Cripes, the Left control 99% of the fking Media, but Leftist Groomers lose their FKING MINDS over ONE center-Right News outlet.

Quite telling how fking insane and insecure the Left are...

Vietnam war era

No sir, the MSM was NEVER unbiased, at least not in my 61 year lifetime. When Reagan ran in 1980 the media hated him. They insinuated that he was stupid, said he was going to start a nuclear war; and assured us that his economic policies would ruin us. No, the left controls the media, and they always have.

They stopped pretending to be unbiased when the internet opened up audiences to many other sources. At that point consumers of news started gravitating to the most partisan sources that supported “their side”.

go back farther

There has been an ongoing ebb and flow in this country regarding press propagandist vs an independant, unbiased press at least as far back as the Spanish American war and probably much further back than that.

It is one of the reasons our founders tried to allow for a free press, becuase governments (including Englad) have been using the press for propoganda reasons as long as there has been a press.

Jingoism and the Yellow Press were responsible for the Spanish American War. William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer (yep the Pulitzer prize dude).

jingoism is the inflaming of national sentiments through slanted news stories. Often the owners of these press outlets have some vested interest in specific outcomes.

Some interesting reading if you are so inclined.

https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2024/02/the-spanish-american-war-and-the-yellow-press/

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The term “yellow journalism” began as a reference to Richard F. Outcault’s “Yellow Kid” cartoon. Because it was published in both The World and the New York Journal, “yellow kid journalism” or “yellow journalism” was a way to refer to the sensationalism that they were both known for. The Scranton Tribune questioned if “the American people really do read such trash in newspaper guise as is produced by Hearst, Pulitzer and the other members of the yellow-kid guild.”

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On the sinking of the Maine.

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In January 1898 the battleship USS Maine was sent to Havana, Cuba, to watch over American interests during the Cuban uprising against Spain. On the evening of February 15, 1898, an explosion on the Maine caused it to sink in the harbor, killing 266 of the crew on board. Although the exact cause of the explosion is still unknown, within days of the explosion, newspapers were blaming Spain. Evidence was misreported or even fabricated, published with large headlines and gruesome images, shocking readers.

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Most people now believe the explosion was most likely a coal bunker fire that set off the ships magazine. That conclusion is mostly derived from the record of the physical evidence which seems tindicate the Maine was destroyed from within the ship.