ABSTRACT
History is often a faithless mistress for enjoying or understanding the present. But in our 80s marriage of the public and the news media, where divorce is impossible, history is our most understanding counsellor. For most of its early life, the American press worked in noisy local slow motion. In early America, 'newspapers' were little more than hand-delivered political tracts. Political journalism remained as strident as ever, but its partisan voice was joined by a chorus even more attention-getting. The wireless, radio, telephone and underseas cable became better ways to spread the word. Radio brought the news faster and crisper. The country was so united in purpose that the federal government itself became the most trusted centerpiece of American life. Television offered the ability to bring the sight of actual events into everybody's home. Television news, coming in short bursts, took its viewers to places better than it educated them.
