I on the Media: Melita Garza discusses journalism’s role in Ken Burns’s ‘The American Revolution’

Although these words of agency come from Paine’s The Rights of Man, written in 1791 during the French Revolution, they capture the spirt of Paine’s earlier writings, such as Common Sense, which helped catalyze the colonists to pursue and persist in the American Revolution. Writing for Wired in 1995, Jon Katz explained why this pioneer of free expression should be remembered in the Internet age. “Because we owe Paine. He is our dead and silenced ancestor. He made us possible.” The documentary covers the eight years of the American Revolution, making it impossible to push too deeply into any single historical actor’s role with the depth they deserve. Ideally, however, the series will inspire viewers to take another look at Thomas Paine and other figures from our past whose impact isn’t fully understood today.

And there’s more. Still within the first two-and-a-half minutes of the documentary, viewers are introduced to Benjamin Franklin. Although described simply as a noted scientist and writer in The American Revolution, Franklin was a pivotal figure in the development of American journalism and is credited with publishing one of the earliest pieces of colonial visual journalism: the political cartoon. The documentary showcases the famous “Join, or Die” snake woodcut drawing, published in Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. Originally designed to rouse the colonists to unite during the French and Indian War, the documentary notes that it was republished to urge colonial unity against the British during the American Revolution.

The documentary is replete with such examples of what I call “hidden” journalism, in which their groundbreaking significance to the journalism profession as a whole remains obscured.

Apart from serving as a sparkplug for rebellion, what are some other ways the documentary depicts the role of journalism in colonial life?

There are a few things, again, just in the first installment, that the documentary flicks at, which underscore the primacy of journalism and print culture more generally in the lives of the colonists. For instance, in a segment discussing the impact of British culture on colonial life, historian Jane Kamensky references the London Book Shop and the Crown Coffee House in Boston. Bookstores offered colonial citizens exposure to Enlightenment ideas, among other things, and served as centers of cultural exchange for the community. Book sellers were often also in the newspaper business. One such newspaper owner was Benjamin Franklin, who is also credited with being first to open a book shop in colonial America. Likewise, coffeehouses were central places for the exchange of news and newspapers. These are two more examples of the “hidden” journalism in the documentary.

Another aspect of journalism that might be easy to overlook in the documentary involves the episode of the Saturday, December 27, 1760, arrival of the British frigate that “brought with it big news”—the death of King George II and the ascendancy of King George III to the British throne. In early colonial America, it was often faster to get news from England by ship than it was to get news from southern colonies, considering the state of the roads at the time. Even so, having to wait two months to find out that you were being ruled by a new monarch illuminates the pace of colonial communication compared to that of today’s high speed Wi-Fi society.

What can The American Revolution teach us about telling historical stories in ways that connect with today’s audiences?

Ken Burns is well known as a gifted storyteller and the documentary’s striking visuals, sound effects and music, and well-edited commentary from experts, are staples of his work. In The American Revolution, letters and journals from young men, women, and officials and pundits on both sides are the stars. These primary sources allow individuals to speak as though they are reporting to us from the homefront and the battlefront, and that brings the Revolution right into our living rooms centuries after it ended. Simply employing solid storytelling techniques is only partly why the story resonates with today’s audiences. The other reason is that we can see parallels with our own experience. Some of these parallels are obvious. Others are a matter of perspective.

For instance, one scene shows colonists on the street reading newspapers together, with some looking like they are commenting to each other. Thinking critically about media and information, the colonists were practicing true social media. In person, face-to-face, they exchanged ideas in a way today’s often anonymous, digital exchanges can’t compare. And as the documentary also notes, word of mouth was also a prime source of news. While it is true that stories and ideas didn’t have a World Wide Web to buzz through, these mechanisms still allowed journalism, starting with Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, to go viral through the colonies. In fact, the documentary points out a prime reason for print culture’s popularity in the Thirteen Colonies: At the time, only Scandinavia was more literate than the American colonial population.

Other relatable issues that we still grapple with today, such as women’s rights, the limits of free speech, taxation, and immigration, to name a few, are also highlighted. Take immigration. In the documentary, historian Christopher Brown discusses “the sheer diversity…living in the heart of the Thirteen Colonies”:  Africans, Scots, Scots-Irish, Huguenots, Germans, and Native Americans, along with the English. The outcome of American Revolution, both the reel one and the real one, proves it was not culture, national origin, or language that brought the colonists success. In historian Christopher Brown’s words, the colonists cohered “around a set of purposes and ideals for one common cause.” In my view, the American Revolution shows how colonial journalism played a prime role in establishing coherence for that single cause: freedom.