Journalism as an Anglo-American Invention

Abstract

This article argues that journalism is an Anglo-American invention. The argument is developed comparing the evolution of French and Anglo-American journalism between the 1830s and the 1920s. It is claimed that American and British journalists invented the modern conception of news, that Anglo-American newspapers contained more news and information than any contemporary French paper and that they had much better organized news-gathering services. Proper journalistic discursive practices, such as reporting and interviewing, were also invented and developed by American journalists. French journalists, like journalists in many other countries, progressively imported and adapted the methods of Anglo-American journalism. This article also attempts to spell out the cultural, political, economic, linguistic and international factors which favoured the emergence of journalism in England and the United States. Journalism could develop more rapidly in these two countries because of the independence of the press from the literary field, parliamentary bipartism, the ability of newspapers to derive substantial revenues from sales and advertising, the dynamics of the English language and because of the Anglo-Saxon central and dominant position in the world.