The newspaper industry and its allies have many grievances against the Web. They say the Web is parasitic, that it copies newspaper content and steals its advertising. They claim that Web creators will never provide the deep reporting that democracy needs and that newspapers provided before the Web arrived and ruined the media neighborhood. They want to tame the Web by rejigging copyright law. And they protest that the Web has undermined quality journalism by teaching readers to expect news for free.
Whatever the merits of these complaints, it’s not the first time established media has accused new media of bringing on Armageddon. In her deeply researched 1995 book, Media at War: Radio’s Challenge to the Newspapers, 1924-1939, scholar Gwenyth L. Jackaway charts a similar set of complaints leveled by newspapers against the upstart media of radio in the 1920s and 1930s.
The then-and-now media parallels don’t line up perfectly, but a review of the newspaper-vs.-radio war provides something just this side of enlightenment and helps frame the underlying issues in the current fight for advertising dollars. Along the way, Jackaway establishes that the newspaper industry was as shameless in the 1930s as it is today and hints at how this modern conflict may resolve itself.
Seen at Slate
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Ever get the feeling the newspaper-Web war was fought before?
