Blog Post #5 - Civil War Press and Fake News

    The Civil War is actually considered to be the first technologically-documented war. This is in part due to the fact that there were more developments in printing technology and the switch from cloth to paper, which made printing cheaper and production faster. 

    Even though there was still some advance left for the press, that did not mean there was a lack of false and or fake news. This concept of misinformation took place long before the Civil War, by what first was the word of mouth and storytelling those opinions, thoughts, and stories of others became widely available to the public.

    During the Civil war era, newspapers rarely included the reporters' names in an article like today. Instead, the newspaper was considered more of a collective voice so the reporters were anonymous which created a lack of accountability. This in turn made it easier for reporters to slip in fake articles and news. 

    During the war, reporters with the army were called correspondents. Their jobs were to gather information from officers in command in order to write their stories. However, many also included their own opinions as to how things were going which lead to even more false information. 

    Reports of the war in the North and South entailed “facts” that heavily differed from each other. Some newspapers were known to report false casualty rates and results of battles to boost morale. Confederate troops even received much of their information through newspapers because their commanders would refuse to relay reports of Union achievements.

    Another example of false news would be on May 18th, 1864, two New York City papers released information stating that president Lincoln announced a draft for 400,000 new soldiers. The problem with this is that Lincoln made no such announcement. 

    When looking at the bigger picture, not all fake news is bad news. Around 1863, two Democratic journalists from the New York World anonymously published a 71-page pamphlet called, Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro. This paper's intention was to idealize a potential future where black and white Americans could live together unrestricted across racial lines. 

    These two writers were attempting to convince white readers that even abolitionist Republicans supported the contents of this paper. They did this by adding an appendix with direct quotes from real abolitionists, implying that they endorsed miscegenation. 

    They even published a photo drawing called “The Miscegenation Ball.” In this picture, all the men were white and dancing with black women. The caption to this photo stated that it was an accurate portrayal of a certain Republican event, which was completely false. However, they were willing to take a gamble to ensure rights for all. 

    Overall, false news can be used to both help and hurt citizens. On one hand, it has started wars, provided false harmful information, and has been used to tear those apart rather than together. Fake news on the other hand has also helped abolish inequality, giving those that read some peace of mind and helping expose those who may be taking advantage of others. It ultimately all comes down to who holds the pen and paper. Whose opinion will you be reading, and what opinions you have of your own.