ABSTRACT
By the 18th century, the principle of the free press was well-established, as was the limitation that, should it do provable damage, it would answer for it under the law. This did not extensively limit its freedom to fake content, but what is remarkable is how few and how notorious examples of this are, into the early 20th century. Journalism had acquired a measure of subjectivity with its absorption of opinion columns, but reporting was still largely a matter of spectating until, in the 19th century, came the idea of journalistic intervention – first with the development of the interview, which produced copy otherwise unavailable to the paper, and then through out-and-out ‘stunts’, which became commonplace by the century’s end. By that time the press had also absorbed photography which, despite being popularly understood not to be capable of lying, could easily do so. Total photographic fakery was rare, but tinkering with the image to some extent, or misrepresenting it through captions, was not. As for news on film, the newsreel was born with a predilection for completely faked ‘reconstructions’, and, later, natural disasters, propaganda, and frivolities. It was killed off by television, never having really established its journalistic bona fides.
