Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism

This book was purchased as a gift. It arrived timely and in excellent condition. It was an excellent surprise and a great read, according to the person that I gifted this book to. It is a bit wordy, but for people that enjoy learning about American history from a rather unusual approach, this book is excellent. Instead of focusing on dates and names, it introduces a ton of excellent theories on the topic of American journalism in a unique voice and offers plenty of entertainment for readers of most skill levels.

Readable, illuminating narrative. No matter how bad or biased you might think journalism is today, current shortcomings pale by comparison with what Burns documents. The story also gives insights into the origins of American party politics and an unvarnished look at some of the Founding Fathers.

Reporting about politics negatively is nothing new. It was so bad, in the beginning, that Adams created a law to forbid it. Jefferson hated that law until he got to his second term as President. Then, he wished that he hadn't got rid of the law in his first term. His hypocrisy, it appears, was not just limited to his ideas about slavery. Great book if you want to understand how unchanged the press is, since our country was founded..

"Infamous Scribblers" was a fantastic read. Newspapers haven't changed much since colonial times. the best part of the book was the historical facts brought up, and the infighting of politicians and printers, among themselves and with each other. It brought out things about our founding fathers that aren't in your regular history books. There is a very great likeness of events and people then and now, The one big difference today is newspapers don't attack like they did then. They didn't hold back much at all and would keep it up and not backdown. Give it a try I think you will enjoy it....Ken

Excellent read, though it did send me to the dictionary several times

An awesome book showing the true power of the press and mans ability to manipulate it to a certain end!

This book explains the history of Journalism since the beginning of the new Americas. This book is a good read to understand the history from word of mouth to the printed word.

I happened to see this book while on vacation; we were killing time in a beautiful atheneum in St. Johnsbury, VT waiting for the start of a movie we wanted to see down the street. Since one of our daughters is a journalist, it sounded like a great Christmas present...and Amazon had an incredible deal on a brand new copy of the book!