| James Gordon Bennett played an important role in the booming times of American popular newspaper. As a giant of newspaper industry, he has far-reaching influences on the American history of journalism and even on history of journalism of the whole world. However, in the domestic academic circle, there is little in-depth study to Bennett. Most researches in China simply concentrate on the aspect of Bennett’s excessive attention to news concerning violence and crime. The evaluation of Bennett is unilateral and oversimplified, therefore, his position as a revolutionary pioneer in the field of journalism is largely ignored by most researchers.Based on the abundant information in foreign languages that the present author has collected, this thesis takes Bennet’s career of journalism as the research object. Through presenting his whole struggling career, and combining his struggling career with his life situation and social status, the research endeavor to make an analysis which is related to his practice in journalism, characteristics of his newspaper, his thought of journalism and his historical status. By studying the deep connections between his personal factors, political factors, business competition factors and his outstanding accomplishment, this thesis tries to delineate the panoramic image of Bennett’s career of journalism. This thesis is divided into five parts.First of all, the thesis will make a review of Bennett’s career. This part inspects the four stages of his career, including his learning process of news, his experience of freelance writer, as Washington journalist his working experiences in the party newspaper for many years and finally establishing independent newspaper.Secondly, Mr. Bennett set up New York Herald, making the newspaper filled with individual characteristics. This section is to analyze his newspaper’s characteristics and to investigate the factors which contribute to the standing-out position of his newspaper in the competition of penny newspapers.Moreover, this thesis will survey contact the Bennett family environment, upbringing experience and education experience to explore the dominant reason of his news career, and also analyze his news thought. Bennett’s news thought all implied in the newspaper articles and newspapers activities, which means Bennett’s news, has the potential and the systematic characteristic. Through the research, the author find his characteristic mainly reflect the independence of the newspaper, the news business improvement and enterprise management.Finally, Bennett, with his professional hardworking spirit, make the New York Herald booming all the time, and it has become the significant influential newspaper in the United States. His pioneering conducts in journalism practice has become the standard practice of modern journalism, which makes enormous contribution to American journalism. This section will present Bennett huge contribution to the journalism based on the above.In addition, the author find that with Bennett’s success, his arrogance and conceit reached the peak. In other words, his excessive pursuit of commercial interests made the New York Herald extreme emotional, ignoring the social responsibility, which caused the social condemnation. This section will pay attention to the other side of Bennett except his contribution and success. Combining with the historical background, social, economic, political and other factors, this thesis aims to view Bennett in association with society, and to make an objective and comprehensive historical position of Bennett. |
PDF Full Text Request