Assignment on Lippmann and Merz, "A Test of the News" (1920)

Read the informative Wikipedia article on this work.

This 42-page work (double-columns, so maybe really about 80 pages) is the single most famous work of press criticism ever written in the United States.

And it has never been reprinted since it was published as a "supplement" to the August 4, 1920 issue of The New Republic magazine.

I have scanned it and uploaded it to the Internet Archive to make it available to anyone who wants it (since it was published before 1923, it is no longer copyrighted).

Download it in PDF format from here, or download it from our Canvas page.

Read and study carefully these sections:

• "Introduction", pp. 1-4; and pp. 34 to the end, consisting of these sections:
• "XI. The Offensive Against Poland" (pp. 34-36);
• "XII. When Intervention Failed, itself consisting of four parts, an introduction; "Dr. Nansen," "War's End," and "Red Peril Againn", pp. 36-41;
• and the last section, "Deductions," pp. 41-42.

Please read through the Wikipedia page on Walter Lippmann and the New York Times obituary of Charles Merz (there is no Wikipedia article on Merz).

As we have already seen, Michael Schudson discusses Lippmann's very significant influence on pages 39-41, and again in Chapter Four, of Discovering the News.

Writing Assignment:

• Write 200 words, or a  bit more, on Chapters XI and XII. Outline the distortions Lippmann and Merz describe in them;
• Write 150 words on the "Introduction" and the last section, "Deductions." What are the authors' conclusions ("Introduction")? What are their recommendations? ("Deducations").

Email to me and to your group.