| This qualitative analysis of ten Kansas City, Missouri, newspapers asks how cultural viewpoints affected political news writing in 1932, when Thomas J. Pendergast's political machine controlled city and county government with a wide influence in the state.; Newspapers studied were the Kansas City Star and Kansas City Journal Post, two mainstream newspapers; the Kansas City Call and Kansas City American, both published in the African-American community; the Labor Herald and Kansas City Labor News; the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle and Catholic Register, the Italian Press; and the Kansas City Daily Democrat, published by the Pendergast organization.; Language choices and editorial positions revealed that nine of the ten newspapers supported the political machine overtly or implicitly. When the machine gained control of the police department, African-American papers anticipated an end to police brutality. Catholic and Jewish newspapers did not report the political activities of Irish Catholic bosses or rabbis. |
