Imprint On Transparent For Web
  • Books
  • Catalogs
  • Series
  • Orders
  • For Authors
  • Contact
  • Support Us
  • Social Media
  • Sale
  • Login|Cart

Before Journalism Schools

How Gilded Age Reporters Learned the Rules

Randall S. Sumpter

Before Journalism Schools

192 pages

Published: June 2018

1 table

ISBN: 9780826221599

Journalism in Perspective

Formats:

Hardcover
Digital download

Price: $40.00

BUY
About This Book
Randall Sumpter questions the dominant notion that reporters entering the field in the late nineteenth century relied on an informal apprenticeship system to learn the rules of journalism. Drawing from the experiences of more than fifty reporters, he argues that cub reporters could and did access multiple sources of instruction, including autobiographies and memoirs of journalists, fiction, guidebooks, and trade magazines. Arguments for “professional journalism” did not resonate with the workaday journalists examined here. These news workers were more concerned with following a personal rather than a professional code of ethics, and implemented their own work rules. Some of those rules governed “delinquent” behavior. While scholars have traced some of the connections between beginning journalists and learning opportunities, Sumpter shows that much more can be discovered, with implications for understanding the development of journalistic professionalism and present-day instances of journalistic behavior.
 
 
Authors and Editors
Randall S. Sumpter is an Associate Professor of Communication at Texas A&M University. He lives in College Station, Texas.
Praise For This Book
“Sumpter introduces the notion that the day’s news work rules were spread through communities of practice, that is, informal interpersonal networks involving ‘knowledge brokers,’ as well as through news fiction, newswriters’ autobiographies, and trade and general interest publications. The author’s early point about how studying this topic can offer insight into today’s technology-driven upsetting of the boundaries of journalism underscores why this study is important.”—Patricia Dooley, Wichita State University; author of Taking Their Political Place: Journalists and the Making of an Occupation and The Technology of Journalism: Cultural Agents, Cultural Icons
"His willingness to venture outside of the standard historian's toolbox and utilize the work of other disciplines to underpin historical work in modern social science makes Sumpter's work not just good, but exceptional. To make that very interdisciplinary work the core of his thesis and theoretical paradigm is a welcome breath of fresh air in the discipline."—H-Net Reviews
"Sumpter's book is a tight, enjoyable, and informative tour through the dominant reporting practices developed and spread among communities of journalists in the late 19th century, dense with evocative tales and woven with secondary research that contextualizes emerging norms on the cusp of institutionalized journalism education. It will be a valuable resource both for teaching and future research on American journalism history." — Perry Parks, Newspaper Research Journal

Books of Interest

Charles K. McClatchy and the Golden Era of American Journalism Hardcover  by Steven M. Avella

Charles K. McClatchy and the Golden Era of American Journalism

Steven M. Avella

Tangled Bylines Hardcover  by Clyde H. Farnsworth

Tangled Bylines

A Father and Son Cover the Twentieth Century

Clyde H. Farnsworth

Before Journalism Schools Digital download  by Randall S. Sumpter

Before Journalism Schools

How Gilded Age Reporters Learned the Rules

Randall S. Sumpter

The Struggle for the Soul of Journalism Hardcover  by Ronald R. Rodgers

The Struggle for the Soul of Journalism

The Pulpit versus the Press, 1833-1923

Ronald R. Rodgers

Provoking the Press Hardcover  by Kevin M. Lerner

Provoking the Press

(MORE) Magazine and the Crisis of Confidence in American Journalism

Kevin M. Lerner

Rewriting the Newspaper Hardcover  by Thomas R. Schmidt

Rewriting the Newspaper

The Storytelling Movement in American Print Journalism

Thomas R. Schmidt

Calendar of Events

Join our email list

Like us

Follow us

Contact Us

Support the Press

Catalogs

Ordering Information

About Us

In partnership with the university, our mission is to advance the humanities and sciences. The University of Missouri Press is committed to publishing important books, including those unlikely to turn a profit for commercial publishers. As the only member of the Association of University Presses in Missouri, the Press is the state’s premier publisher of original and relevant peer-reviewed trade titles, textbooks, references, and monographs in disciplines served by the University of Missouri. We discover and disseminate knowledge through scholarly print and digital publications that will improve the quality of life—not only for all who call Missouri home, but for people across the nation and around the world.

© Curators of the University of Missouri.
All rights reserved. DMCA and other copyright information.
An equal opportunity/affirmative action institution.
Site Powered by Supadu