Abstract
This article details how one newspaper The New York Times portrayed Russian Jews between 1851 and 1905 and seeks to answer how and why there were certain periods of time that reporting on Russian Jews peaked in the newspaper. The results demonstrated that during time periods of significant immigration of Russian Jews to the United States, namely 1881-1882, 1890-1893, and 1903-1905, The New York Times reported significantly more about Jewish persecution in Russia. The results also demonstrate that news stories about Russia may have appealed to American citizens, particularly when the portrayal of Russia was either sensationalized or negative. The methods used were analysis of historical The New York Times newspaper articles as well as quantification of articles used through categorizing by date of publication. For example, in the 1870s 6 articles related to Russian Jews were published in The New York Times, 80 in the 1880s, 170 in the 1890s, and 407 between 1900 and 1905. The extent of which Americans were interested in Russia is subject for later research by comparison to how other newspapers portrayed Russia during this same immigration period. This research only focuses on one source as a baseline to discover trends in reporting within an individual source.
Highlights
United States media is fascinated with Russia and in particular, negative portrayal of Russia
Non-Jews from the Russian Empire immigrated to the United States as well between 1881 and 1910 though Jews made up 48.3 percent of the total Russian immigration (Joseph, 1914, 98-101)
He stated as follows: “The newspapers are regarded by democrats as a panacea for their own defects, whereas analysis of the nature of news and of the economic basis of journalism seems to show that the newspapers necessarily and inevitably reflect, and in greater or lesser measure, intensify, the defective organization of public opinion”15
Summary
United States media is fascinated with Russia and in particular, negative portrayal of Russia. U.S media criticizes the Russian president and alludes to Russian deception, hacking, and other negative connotations when describing Russia. This is not a new trend in the United States. The media has the ability to influence our perceptions, and this article demonstrates how one media source contributed to American perception of the Russian Empire through its emphasis on Russia’s treatment of its Jewish population. Through analysis of trends in the numbers of articles published each year and each decade between 1851 to 1905 pertaining to Jews in the Russian Empire, this article seeks to answer if there were trends in reporting and what factors may have contributed to an increase of articles related to Russia’s Jewish population
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