Page 116 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

CHOICE
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THE PEOPLE'S
which began with Benjamin Day's New York Sun in 1833, changed that. The
penny papers sought wide audiences. They were sensational, and their political
coverage was much less partisan than that of their predecessors. The Sun was
followed by James Gordon Bennett's Herald in 1835 and Horace Greeley's
Tribune in 1841. The penny press revolution gained widespread popularity in
America's larger cities, and circulation rose to record levels. {See also James
Gordon Bennett; Benjamin Day.)
SOURCE: William Howard Taft, ed., The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Journalism,
1986.
Guido H. Stempel III

PENTAGON PAPERS. In 1971, the New York Times and the Washington Post
began publishing installments from a government study called "History of
United States Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy." The study exam-
ined the country's policies with Vietnam across three decades. The study's con-
tents were classified as secret but were leaked to the press by Dr. Daniel
Ellsberg, formerly a Pentagon analyst. Ellsberg believed that the study's infor-
mation should be shared with the American public. The Nixon administration
sought and obtained an injunction to stop publication. The case went almost
immediately to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Court took the position that the fact that the document was classified did
not mean that it involved national security. This was in response to the fact that
there were 20 million classified documents. Justice Potter Stewart stated the
problem succinctly in his opinion when he said that "when everything is clas-
sified, nothing is classified." Only one of the nine justices concluded that na-
tional security might be endangered by publication of the papers.
In a 6-3 verdict the Court removed the injunction because it constituted prior
restraint, and the government had not offered sufficient justification for doing
this.

SOURCE: Leon Hurwitz, Historical Dictionary of Censorship in the U.S., 1985.
Guido H. Stempel HI

THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE was the first comprehensive look at how people
make voting decisions in a presidential campaign. Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Ber-
elson, and Hazel Gaudet, pioneer mass communication researchers, surveyed
residents in Erie County, Ohio, during the 1940 presidential campaign, which
pitted two-term Democratic incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt against Republi-
can challenger and businessman Wendell L. Willkie. The county was picked
because it had been a bellwether county in recent presidential elections. How-
ever, in 1940, it voted for Willkie.
Using an innovative technique called a panel design, the researchers con-
ducted repeated interviews with a sample of 600 residents each month. The