Red Blood & Black Ink: Journalism in the Old West

The great temptation in commenting on this highly entertaining history of journalism in the American West--from 1808, when the first newspaper west of the Mississippi went to press in St. Louis, to the early 20th century--is simply to repeat some of the excerpts from old newspapers that Dary has the good sense to quote so lavishly. They are salty, angry, foul-tempered, opinionated, unfair, misspelled and more fun to read than an entire year of contemporary op-ed pages. Most of the newspapers in the early West were more personal, more direct and snappier than what Easterners were reading. The coverage of politics was unabashedly partisan (pro- or anti-slavery before the Civil War; Republican or Democrat after). Western editors, like their descendants, knew that sensationalism sells and, accordingly, lavished attention on scandal and death (violent, if possible). Just about every paper ""boomed"" the local community and bad-mouthed the neighboring ones, and most elevated the art of viciously attacking rival publications to a blood sport. Despite these lurid habits, however, papers gave national and international news more coverage than one might expect. Informative appendixes discuss 19th-century printing presses (by brand name) and printing terms and provide a detailed listing of early Western papers and their editors. Dary (author of seven previous books on the West, including Cowboy Culture) delivers a nicely balanced mixture of scholarship and anecdote. Photos. (Mar.)