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David W. Bulla is a professor of communication at Augusta University. His books include Lincoln’s Censor, Why Slavery Endures, and Gandhi, Advocacy Journalism, and the Media. He is assistant editor of The Southeastern Review of Journalism History. Dr. Bulla earned a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Florida and his master’s degree in journalism from Indiana University. He is a former sports editor and high school student newspaper adviser. Gregory A. Borchard is professor of mass communication and journalism at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His books include A Narrative History of the American Press and Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley. He edited the Encyclopedia of Journalism and the journal Journalism History for the History Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Dr. Borchard earned a Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of Florida.
Bulla and Borchard's analysis of newspapers during the Civil War era shows that this was a transformative time for the press and a perilous time for the relationship between government and the press. The authors argue effectively that 'the media that emerged [from the first Modern War] laid the foundation for modern news. -David B. Sachsman, West Chair of Excellence and Director of the Symposium on the Nineteenth Century Press, the Civil War, and Free Expression, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Bulla and Borchard have produced what has been long needed in the study of U.S. Civil War journalism: a social and cultural history of the American press that goes beyond anecdotal accounts of war news. They explore the nature of the Civil War-era press itself in all its strengths and weaknesses, ranging from political and economic grandstanding and over-the-top verbal grandiloquence to the sheer bravery and determination of a number of editors, publishers, and journalists who viewed their tasks as interpreters and informers of the day's news. Using a mix of carefully selected case studies as well as an extensive study of newspapers both large and small, this highly readable work places the Civil War press squarely where it belongs-as a part of the larger social and cultural experience of mid-nineteenth century America. -Mary M. Cronin, Department of Journalism, New Mexico State University The study of Civil War journalism has traditionally been treated as a facet of the history of war correspondence, but war reporting does not exist in a vacuum, as David Bulla and Gregory Borchard skillfully show readers in their latest edition of Journalism in the Civil War Era. This new edition freshens the book's original version by expanding on their insightful examination of the way the American Civil War ushered in the greater reliance on the information model of journalism, which would exist side-by-side with the existing partisan model. Few scholars have attempted the sort of holistic study that examines not only the nature of Civil War journalism but, more significantly, the symbiotic relationship between the press and its culture. Bulla and Borchard have done the hard work of digging out the necessary evidence to paint a full-color portrait of journalism during America's bloodiest conflict. -Debbie van Tuyll, Professor Emerita, Department of Communications, Augusta University
