When Victorian Newspapers Put Gender-Bending on Trial

1870s Press Covered an Otherwise Trivial Case as Breathlessly—and Dangerously—as Today’s Trans Stories

In 1870, Ernest Fanny Boulton and Frederick Stella Park were arrested in London. Their crime? Presenting as women outside their theatrical act.

Fanny and Stella had appeared in newspapers before, known for their colorful personas as entertainers, sometimes praised and sometimes criticized for their performances. Boulton was revered for being the “best amateur performer off the boards,” while Park had a talent for interpreting matrons, dowagers, and old women in pantomimes. As long as their gender-bending impersonating talents were put to the good use of gentlemanly entertainment, there was nothing wrong …

How Three Texas Newspapers Manufactured Three Competing Images of Immigrants | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How Three Texas Newspapers Manufactured Three Competing Images of Immigrants

In Depression-Era San Antonio, Polarized Portraits of Mexicans Appealed to the Biases of Readers

In August 1930, an editorial writer for the largest newspaper chain on Earth proclaimed: “THE FARMER rids his barn of rats, his hen-house of weasels … the government of the …

A Cultural Touchstone Fends off the End of an Era

In the Age of the Angry Asian Man Blog, 113-year-old Japanese-American Newspaper 'The Rafu Shimpo' Reaches Out to New Readers

Long before I was the English editor of The Rafu Shimpo—the newspaper that covers Japanese-American communities up and down the Pacific Coast and other Japanese-American hubs like Denver, New York, …

I’m Happy Sheldon Adelson Wants to Own a Newspaper

The Ensuing Conflicts of Interest May Be Troubling, But It Sure Beats the Alternative

There is good news and bad news to report from the world of those whose business it is to relay the news. The good news is that the family of …

Blogs Are Not Dead

In an Era Where Institutions Are Dying, Individual Media Is Still King

I started my first blog 15 years ago, about the same time Andrew Sullivan embraced the form. Sullivan’s highly publicized decision to end his blog doesn’t surprise me, but it …

Is Fox News the Smartest Journalism Ever?

Tabloid Television Is Great at Manipulating America’s Long History of Elitism and Class Conflict

Lamenting the decline of journalism is a familiar trope of our media culture. Since a great wave of tabloid TV shows emerged in the late-1980s and cable news gained influence …