When the media began, it had a political agenda. It was an outlet through which the common people would criticize the government. The right to criticize was established in 1735 by John Peter Zenger, the first journalist to criticize the government in his newspaper, The New York Weekly Journal. Zenger was jailed by the government, but found not guilty by the jury. This was the first time anyone had publicly protested against the government, fought persecution in the courts, and won. Thus, this case set the precedent for the First Amendment.

In the early history of American Journalism most newspaper articles were editorials. As the media's influence grew, the government began to tak

An example of the media’s influence is the Spanish-American War. In 1898 negotiations were going on between the United States and Spain over the two countries’ involvement in the Caribbean. William Randolph Hearst, editor and owner of the New York Daily and media pioneer, sent artist Fredrick Remington to Cuba to paint pictures of what was happening because Hearst believed war was unavoidable. Remington reported back that there was nothing to paint and negotiations were going well. Hearst responded "You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war." The USS Maine mysteriously sank off the coast of Cuba, and a painting of this was sent to Hearst. Even though it was never discovered what made the USS Maine sink, Hearst printed a story that said Spain was directly responsible. The American people were so outraged that they called for immediate action against Spain. Congress had no choice but to declare war on Spain. From this war the United States established itself as a superpower, overpowering the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. This affected the United States, in that, Hawaii became the fiftieth state and Puerto Rico is pushing hard to become the fifty-first. What Hearst did was one of the earliest and most notorious examples of yellow, or tabloid, journalism. He used the power of the media to mislead the people for his own gains. Today the terms slander and libel have been created to combat yellow journalism. Through the media Hearst created a major war in American history which led to the annexation of territory, the fiftieth state and helped set the stage for yellow journalism and its role in American policy.

One of the most recent and probably most stunning examples of the media’s power was Watergate. Watergate is a general term used to describe a complex web of political scandals between 1972 and ’74. A burglary arrest at the Democratic National headquarters (Watergate Hotel- hence the name Watergate) started the unraveling of the web. At first, the burglary seemed minor and un-newsworthy and no one was really interested. Two reporters assigned to the story by The Washington Post, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, foun

Some topics in this essay:
Puerto Rico, Bob Woodward, United August, York World, National Guard, Powers Resolution, War Watergate, , USS Maine, Nixon President, vietnam conflict, american history, american policy, history american, york world, spanish-american war, american history american, conflict united, united people, powers resolution, world crusade, vietnam conflict united, examples media’s power, history american policy, york world crusade,