Any Questions?

Schudson and Sonnevend talk about the changes of the norms of journalism. Whether the economy is good or bad, whether the president is in a first or second term, or whether questions were foreign- or domestic-concentrated, the character of questioning shows no substantial fluctuation over time apart from the big post-1968 shift. Only the change in journalistic culture seems to matter. The American shift in the culture of questioning parallels trends at the same time toward less deferential, more critical "watchdog" reporting in Britain, Sweden, and elsewhere in the world. The invigoration of journalism in the Vietnam/ Watergate era is the third moment in US journalism history of a "major mutation" in news reporting. The earlier changes were the move in the 1830s toward a more news-centered (rather than commentary-centered) press and the rise in the early twentieth century of practices based on an ideal of "objective" news reporting.