Boundaries and Journalistic Authority in Newspaper Coverage of the Hutchins Report

Abstract

In the weeks following its March 1947 release, the much-anticipated Hutchins Commission’s report on the press prompted intense US newspaper coverage on both news pages and in editorial columns. Using textual analysis, this study examines these reports on the Commission’s work, and builds on the research of Margaret Blanchard, Victor Pickard, Stephen Bates, and others. It finds that newspapermen immediately began working to stake their claim to journalistic authority amid the rise of broadcast. Newspapers took great pains to tell audiences that they, more than any other entity, answered to their customers’ interests. This paper argues that with radio thriving and the rise of television just around the corner, print news coverage of the report’s release largely marked an early case of newspapers attempting to set boundaries and establishing themselves as the true “press” that was willing to take responsibility on its own terms and knew its audience better than other mediums.