Show Notes
In 18th century America, news traveled slowly across the Atlantic. Newspapers reprinted secondhand reports, private letters, and unverified stories from abroad, leaving readers with multiple versions of reality.
In a world educated by an unverifiable news cycle, how did misinformation shape early American life?
To explore how news, rumor, and misrepresentation influenced the course of the American Revolution and the nation that followed, we are joined by Jordan Taylor, a historian of American history and the author of Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America.
Timestamps:
Intro
How colonists got their news
Why foreign news dominated early newspapers
How colonial newspapers verified information
Did miscommunication help spark the Revolution?
The XYZ Affair and the Sedition Act
The First Amendment's original meaning
Current day parallels
Outro
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