James Fenimore Cooper, 2 Centuries Ago: “the American press is the pest of society, the bane of decency, the perverter of truth, and the pander of crime”

As the 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans turns 200 this year, it is worth our salt to head to the New York Times in order to check out the Alexandra Jacobs book review of Alex Wright's EMPIRE OF INK: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper. (Thanks for the Instalink, Sarah.)

Her New York Times review, titled A Spunky History of Newspapers Adds Color to the Black and White, of this "unsentimental history of the American newspaper from the Revolutionary War to the beginning of the 20th century" shows how, already two to three centuries ago, "newspapermen were held in low repute" (and how!) 

Besides Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, a number of classic authors are mentioned in the review as well as in the book. What they thought about the press and how they fought back, in writing as in deed, can be described as far stronger than any railings and any comebacks Donald Trump has undertaken against "fake news." 

Charles Dickens, a former reporter … whose books were hugely successful in serial, found the American penny papers “so filthy and so bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house, for a water-closet door-mat.” The hero of his “Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit” is confronted with self-important scandal sheets like The New York Sewer and The New York Rowdy Journal.

James Fenimore Cooper filed 14 libel suits against various newspapers, all of which he won, and declared that “the American press is the pest of society, the bane of decency, the perverter of truth and the pander of crime.” (He would fit right in on Threads.)

Edgar Allan Poe once challenged the editor of The Richmond Examiner, a defender of slavery who’d written about Poe’s rumored affair with a local widow, to a duel. The poet showed up too drunk to fight; they repaired to a tavern and became lifelong friends.

 
The "water-closet" that Dickens mentions is of course a toilet (WC). As far as Poe is concerned, who can deny they wouldn't love to see a duel between Donald Trump and George Stephanopoulos? (Pistols or sabers?) 

If the internet is to be believed (and I'm sorry, I don't remember exactly where I got this particular meme from), Hunter Thompson said something quite similar in the 20th century…