Reana Baltic
Dr. Brian Thornton
MMC 4500
3 October 2014
The Life of Investigative Report Nellie Bly
Throughout history, individuals such as Benjamin Franklin, Joseph Pulitzer and Robert Novak have all made their prominent mark on the history of journalism. Journalist Nellie Bly, however, pioneered a new type of investigative journalism that would impact future reporters internationally and that emphasized the benefits of using journalistic power to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
Born Elizabeth Cochran on May 5, 1964, Nellie Bly was raised in Cochran's Mills, Pennsylvania (“Nellie Bly Biography”). At age six, Bly's father, Judge Cochran, passed away and left Bly and her mother to struggle financially on their own (Kroeger
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The journalist returned to the States and took a train to Philadelphia where 5,000 people awaited her arrival on January 25, 1890 (Kroeger 432). Nellie Bly completed her goal and made it around the world in seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds (“Nellie Bly Biography”). Following her trip, the New York World wrote a story titled ‘Father Time Outdone!’ and Bly became “the best-known reporter in America” (Goodman 341). Bly followed her journey by continuing to compose investigative articles for the World and wrote about a drought that hit the States, murderesses in jail and the Pullman Palace Car Company strike in Chicago (Emerson …show more content…
Seaman died in 1904, resulting in Bly’s take over of the company where she became “the world’s leading female industrialist” (Goodman 371). The company later resulted in bankruptcy after Major Edward Gilman, controller of the company’s finances, died in 1911 (Goodman 374). With the demolition of the company and after seventeen years working out of journalism, Bly began to work for the New York Evening Journal at age 48 (Goodman 374). In seek of a new occupation, Bly traveled to Austria in 1914 where a week later, World War I erupted (Goodman 376). Bly automatically contacted the New York Evening Journal and sent in stories from the war front. As the conflict continued, Bly participated in the relief effort by the Red Cross Hospital in Budapest and wrote a story about a Russian solider on the edge of death seeking his children (Goodman 376). In 1919 Bly traveled back to the states and regularly wrote for the Journal once again (Goodman
What impact did Nellie Bly have as a muckraker and feminist in the progressive era? In order to determine the impact Nellie Bly had as a muckraker, the publicity she received from the press is going to be examined. In addition, her accomplishments in reforming mental asylums as a journalist and her strides towards feminism are going to be examined. First hand accounts of the conditions in mental asylums at the time, from Nellie Bly and other reformers, are going to be examined. State laws and funding regarding mental asylums and the treatment of the mentally ill are going to be examined in order to assess the effectiveness of her muckraking. The breadth of her fame is going to be examined, through biographies and first hand accounts of her story, in order to assess her impact around the world and on the way the people of the time viewed women professionals.
If Youngs’s thesis was to illustrate how the sufferings and achievements of E. Roosevelt’s life was what made it possible for her to become the influential woman that she was, then Youngs did a great job by incorporating so much of E. Roosevelt’s early life into the biography. But if Youngs did not intend for that to be his thesis then this book was a confusing mess that left readers wondering why he put so much of E. Roosevelt’s early life in the book but a minimal amount of her life during her husband’s long presidential terms in office.
I say this because there were points in which I personally could not really understand what was going on due to my lack of exposure to this problem that American journalism is facing. More specifically, terminology that was used, especially from business standpoints, and the different companies that were involved made it harder to keep up with the issue at hand. However, with a little editing and better explanation of terminology, I think that this film could extend to a wide audience that would include both digital natives and digital immigrants that are experiencing this transition within American news reporting. This paper will examine the difference between old and new journalism and its new standards, “The New York Times Effect” and its 21st century challenges, important qualifications to be a successful journalist, and the future role of journalism within American society.
Ella Baker was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1903. She always had strong opinions, and “followed her own mind”. However, she was influenced by her grandmother growing up, and this contributed to her sense of social justice and racism. Her grandmother, who had once been a slave, told her granddaughter stories of her own years in slavery. Her grandmother had been whipped for refusing to marry a man picked by her slave owner (SNCC). This story and others like it inspired Baker throughout her life, and led to many of the incredible things she did. Ella and her parents moved to Littleton, North Carolina when she was eight. Sadly, her father stayed behind for his job. The public schools for black children during this time were not sufficient. Her parents wanted to send her and her brother and sister to boarding schools. They both worked hard to acquire this. Finally, when Baker turned fifteen she was sent to Shaw University, in North Carolina (SNCC). Being the bright, intelligent student that she was, she had excellent grades, and was top in her class. She expressed an interest in being a medical missionary, but this would not have been realistic. After graduating in 1927 as valedictorian, Baker headed to New York City (Richman). She was quite brilliant and hoped to find some opportunities in New York that would help her do something worthwhile with her life.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on February 7, 1867 in a log cabin near Pepin, Wisconsin. Her family consisted up of five children. Their names were ( in order of age oldest-youngest) Mary, Laura, Caroline/Carrie, Charles/Freddy(died at birth), and Grace. Laura’s Parents were Charles Ingalls and Caroline Quiner. Throughout her life Laura depended on her family for support, but after she got married, she depended more on her husband. Laura went to a variety of schools. She started her education in Wisconsin when she was five with her sister Mary. When Laura was seven, her father wanted to move somewhere else, so the settled in Walnut Grove. She continued her schooling there until 2 years later, when her father wanted to move again because of failed
Today, not many Americans will recognize the name Nellie Bly when heard, but things were much different 100 years ago. It would have been very difficult to find any American that had not heard of the famous Nellie Bly. Nellie Bly burst on the scene at the turn of the century when journalism was considered only a man's world. Nellie Bly helped to launch a new kind of investigative journalism into the world.
When Ruth first started her journey in law, women were practically unheard of as lawyers; now three women sit on the bench of the highest court in the nation. On March 13, 1933, Joan Ruth Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Celia Amster and Nathan Bader (Salokar & Volcansek, 1996). Ruth had an older sister, Marilyn, but she passed away at the age of six from meningitis; Ruth was one year old at the time. Cecilia, Ruth’s mother, stayed home and took care of Ruth while she grew up. Cecilia made sure that Ruth worked diligently in school and taught her the value of hard work.
In 1945, Flannery O’Connor transferred to the University of Iowa after receiving a scholarship for journalism. After a few months, she realized journalism was not her dream. She talked t...
After five years of editing and being a theater critic in 1847 she was ready to start a new chapter in her life. So she ended up retiring to get married. When she retired on September 1st, 1847 the owners wrote in the Boston Transcript “The experiment of placing a lady as the responsible editor of a Paper was a new and doubtful one. It was a bold step on her part to undertake so much labor and responsibility. She made the trial with fear and trembling, and her success has been triumphant. The task had never been undertaken in this or any other country, to the knowledge of the publishers, by one of her sex; it was consequently the more trying, and her victory the more brilliant.” Cornelia Walter got married to a man named William Boardman Richard on September 22, 1827. Her husband was an iron and steel dealer in Boston. She had a daughter named Annie who died at three years old, twins William and Walter Boardman born in 1853, died at six months. It’s unknown on why or how her three kids died. It’s also said that she had a fourth child who was a girl named Elise Boardman born in 1848 and survived then put up for
Shirley Chisholm, named Shirley Anita St. Hill at birth, was born to Charles Christopher St. Hill and Ruby Seale on November 30, 1924, in Brooklyn, New York. Both her parents were immigrants. Her father was a factory worker from Guyana and her mother was a seamstress and a domestic worker. At the age of three, Shirley relocated to Barbados to live with her grandmother. She received much of her primary education in the Barbadian school system, which stressed the traditional British teachings of reading, writing, and history. Chisholm credits much of her educational successes to this well-rounded early education. When Chisholm was ten years old, she returned to New York.
Last but not least, in discussing WWI individual major contributors you have to mention Francis Pegahmagbow or better known as “Peggy” by his fellow soldiers. He was arguably one of the most decorated soldiers in the entire war. Life wasn’t easy for this Ojibwa soldier though, as he had to overcome fierce adversity throughout his life from his childhood, to fighting in WWI. Peggy was an Ojibwa, part of the First Nations group in Canada. He was born in 1889 on the Parry Island Indian Reserve, near Parry Sound, Ontario. He experienced hardships early on in his life, as when he was just 3 his father died and his mother abandoned him. Luckily for Peggy he was taken care by elder Noah Nebimanyquod who also raised his orphaned father. Nebimanyquod
The author provides a rough timeline of the objective norm emerging in American journalism, and explains the inner origin of these co...
... of their great influences. What could be much different from a man’s interpretation of the same events? Women have lied under the surface in occupations such as writing, however, have helped build and create small changes in our world today. These women, such as Blair Niles, who was a founding member of The Society of Women Geographers, did not sit idly by waiting for change to occur. More of this genre of writing would include Rose Wilder Lane and her companion “Troub” or Helen Dore Boylston, as mentioned earlier in their trek across 1920’s Europe, Jan Morris, a travel writer who traveled the world in about fifty years of travel writing, and Elizabeth Cochrane, also known as Nellie Bly, who would become the first person to circumnavigate the globe in under Eighty Days, taking after the fictional character from Jules Verne’s novel, ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’.
Ward, S. (2009). Journalism Ethics For the Global Citizen. Researching Ethics: History of Journalism Ethics. Available: http://www.journalismethics.info/research_ethics/history.htm [Accessed 06 December 2013]
This book focuses on what journalists can and cannot report. According to the Press Complaints Commission journalists are doing anything to get a good story which is making the media industry more competitive. This book helps back-up the book written by B Richards as it mentions the censorship of what journalists can and cannot write. It also talks about new laws that have been recommended to be introduced to stop unsavoury ways of gathering information so that they do not damage the innocent when it comes to reporting criminal cases, which is what has happened in past cases. This is useful as it puts into perspective what can go wrong with