Pressing Matters (Mediating American History, 23)

Given the highly globalized and converged sets of communication technologies in the contemporary media landscape, information consumers―all of us―can begin to understand the complexity of interpreting daily news. Providing an overview of American media, press, and journalism, and the events, institutions, and people related to its development, this book helps readers develop perspective on contemporary media by using its development for reference. Along with an array of supplemental materials, readers will find tools used by both reporters and historians to understand the present through the past, allowing readers to use the history of journalism as a lens for their own storytelling, reporting, and critical analysis skills. While focusing on American news, the book also features international media other than print newspapers alone. It integrates public relations, advertising, broadcast, and the Internet into a story of the press that builds a singular narrative for a general audience.

"This book tells the story of a nation that decided in its founding that two things had to be foundational for the country and its primary institutions to last: one was that it should have newspapers; and the other was that those newspapers would be free and independent to publish as they pleased. This has not always been a harmonious relationship… nevertheless, it is the basis of the American system, and the press is the only profession directly mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Perhaps as important is the fact that culturally the United States has had a built-in dependency on news from its founding. Thus, it is through this lens that the whole panorama of American mass media must be viewed, which Borchard and Yotova have done here."
– David W. Bulla, Augusta University, Georgia

"A refreshing update on traditional media history texts, Pressing Matters takes a new approach by highlighting the influential people and events that comprise that history―from Colonial-era printers who first pursued values of free press and free speech to the partisans, publishers, populists, muckrakers, and innovators who built a powerful press and thus a nation. Students will discover in this book engaging, accessible content that smoothly connects the history of the press with their own, media-saturated world."
– Katrina Jesick Quinn, Slippery Rock University, Pennsylvania

"In this thorough and thoughtful study of journalism in the United States, Borchard and Yotova use social, cultural, and political analyses to explore a broad range of significant issues over the course of US history. Offering much to ponder and debate, this book provides a crucial context for understanding the freedom of the press."
– Orville Vernon Burton, author of Justice Deferred: Race and the Supreme Court and Age of Lincoln

Gregory A. Borchard is a professor of mass communication and journalism at UNLV. He authored Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley and coauthored Journalism in the Civil War Era and Lincoln Mediated: The President and the Press through Nineteenth-Century Media. Dr. Borchard earned a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Florida in 2003.

Denitsa H. Yotova received her Ph.D. in Journalism from the University of Maryland in 2023, and her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in Journalism and Media Studies from UNLV. Dr. Yotova heads online classes in media for both the University of Maryland and UNLV. Her research focuses on news photography, media history, and mass communication theory.