Andie Tucher - Froth & Scum: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and the Ax Murder in Americas First Mass Medium

Two notorious antebellum New York murder casesa prostitute slashed in an elegant brothel and a tradesman bludgeoned by the brother of inventor Samuel Coltset off journalistic scrambles over the meanings of truth, objectivity, and the duty of the press that reverberate to this day.In 1833 an entirely new kind of newspapercheap, feisty, and politically independentintroduced American readers to the novel concept of what has come to be called objectivity in news coverage. The penny press was the first medium that claimed to present the true, unbiased facts to a democratic audience. But in Froth and Scum, Andie Tucher exploresand explodesthe notion that objective reporting will discover a single, definitive truth.As they do now, news stories of the time aroused strong feelings about the possibility of justice, the privileges of power, and the nature of evil. The prostitutes murder in 1836 sparked an impassioned public debate, but one newspapers impartial investigation pleased the powerful by helping the killer go free. Colts 1841 murder of the tradesman inspired universal condemnation, but the newspapers singleminded focus on his conviction allowed another secret criminal to escape. By examining media coverage of these two sensational murders, Tucher reveals how a communitys needs and anxieties can shape its public truths. The manuscript of this book won the 1991 Allan Nevins Prize of the Society of American Historians for the best-written dissertation in American history.