The kept newspaper

At center, a woman wearing a newspaper dress drinks “Subsidy Brand” champagne chilling in a bucket labeled “Wall Street Cooler,” while a man labeled “Corporate Interests” writes a check. A bust statue of “Horace Greeley” is visible in the background. The entire scene is framed by an octopus with tiny male figures caught in its tentacles. Surrounding vignettes show a newspaper editor as he looks to his staff (larger than life) and to the newspaper owners (diminutive), a “Business Manager” telling an “editorial writer” to tone down comments about a “forest spoliation matter [because] the boss has acquired some interests out there,” and a newspaper reader “who has read the paper for forty years” influenced by the resulting editorial – “I guess that western forest steal ain’t as bad as they made it out. This editorial says it’s been grossly exaggerated.”

Comments and Context

People today are aware, and often concerned, that newspapers show bias. In fact since before the Revolution most newspapers were intended to assert partisan points of view. Readers expected and often welcomed the situation. It was only in the twentieth century that newspapers self-identified as neutral or independent or non-partisan, or “news only,” even if editorial pages leaned left or right, Democrat or Republican. That facade faded away, or morphed into outright partisanship.

It is interesting that S. D. Ehrhart’s biting cartoon “The Kept Newspaper” foreshadows some criticisms of  the twenty-first century. Those criticisms arise not from a newspaper’s overt stances, even in the choice of stories or slanted headlines for one party or the other. The concern is about subtle distortions embedded deep in stories, and corporate (or other) string-pulling, not merely party politics.

During the Harrison Administration Puck had criticized the president for giving government jobs and ambassadorial posts to friendly publishers and editors, as payback and to curry favor. Ehrhart is even more cynical — and, for 1907, somewhat daring — by characterizing such newspaper under willing control of business interests as mistresses or prostitutes.

Art Young, the radical cartoonist (who would soon be joining Puck‘s staff) once drew a cartoon of editorial writers, reporters, and cartoonists as “kept women” in a bordello, and specifically caricatured E. W. Kemble, who bounced from publication to publication, fashioning his politics to each publisher’s views as he went, but Ehrhart’s cartoon is less specific but more brutal.

For readers who might miss the point, Ehrhart laid out the manner and practice of “buying” the news-presentation, step by step.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1907-09-04

Creator(s)

Ehrhart, S. D. (Samuel D.), approximately 1862-1937

Period

U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)

Repository

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Page Count

1

Record Type

Image

Resource Type

Cartoon

Rights

These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.

Citation