News and misinformation in early America

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:

00:00 Intro

02:05 How colonists got their news

08:28 Why foreign news dominated early newspapers

17:33 How colonial newspapers verified information

22:32 Did miscommunication help spark the
Revolution?

29:57 The XYZ Affair and the Sedition Act

39:21 The First Amendment’s original meaning

44:34 Current day parallels

55:41 Outro

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