The sloppy, fast-paced news cycle of 1891
"America has in fact transformed journalism from what it once was, the periodical expression of the thought of the time, the opportune record of the questions and answers of contemporary life, into an agency for collecting, condensing and assimilating the trivialities of the entire human existence, [...] the frantic haste with which we bolt everything we take, seconded by the eager wish of the journalist not to be a day behind his competitor, abolishes deliberation from judgment and sound digestion from our mental constitutions. We have no time to go below surfaces, and as a general thing no disposition." Journalist W.J. Stillman, writing in The Atlantic Monthly about the negative influence of the telegraph, 1891.
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Maggie Koerth-Baker
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