Chapter Focus

The last five chapters’ selections are all extremely important to America's history which made the decision of which chapter to focus on all the harder. Exposing McCarthy's exploitation of Cold War fears, Setting the Civil Rights Movement to the national agenda, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and Rush Limbaugh's Republican Revolution are all pillars for Journalism toward American democracy, so much so that they've all marked turning points in American ideas, politics, culture, and journalistic technique. Despite the importance or significance presented in each chapter I once again find myself concentrating on times of war, more specifically the Vietnam War. Similar to my previous chapter selection Journalism not only helped influence the start of war but shaped it has it occurred. In the American Revolution individuals such as Tom Paine and Sam Adams spoke their voice, influencing hundreds of thousands of people to rise up, let their voices be heard, and challenge the British authority. Then during the war, the same people during time of crisis were able to encourage Americans to Victory. At the end of the 19th century advances in journalism created the Spanish-American war as a byproduct of journalistic competition and set the time frame for how long it lasted. As much as journalism was a part of the American Revolution and the Spanish American War, it was even more prevalent during the age of the Vietnam War, particularly due to the fact that it was not an American Victory.