The Year of The Hangman Book Blog

Join an 8th grade American History class in Liberty, Missouri as they read the historical novel "The Year of the Hangman" and ask what would have happened if the Patriots would have lost the American Revolutionary War....

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Week 3 - Question #4

Enemies of the Patriot's cause felt the need to destroy the place where The Liberty Tree newspaper was printed. What do you think this says about the power of the press? Can you think of a recent example in which a newspaper became a powerful tool in waging war or impacting world politics?

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

A place where print was waging war a little was right here in Kansas City and all around the nation of the U.S. before the war of Operation Iraqi freedom. This being said the paper waged people to believe we needed to go to war which shows that print has a huge effect on people and the sway of their thoughts.

Clayton B

11:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Ememies of the Patriots felt that destroying The Liberty Tree Newspaper building was important because the newspaper told the patriots when they were to fight and how many men the patriots had. Today when papers have writing on voting such as voting for presidents the paper says things that they did when the president was younger that may not be true, the writers say this to get people to think what the president did was bad.

~Rebecca Dillon~ hr. 1

10:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think the press has been accussed of misrepresenting the war in Iraq. Both sides of the fence accuse the media for portraying information unfairly or incorrectly. President Bush has claimed the press only covers the violence and deaths in Iraq, and does not show the progress being made, while there are many others who claim that the American public has been mislead and doesn't know enough about the realities of the situation. At least we can have a public debate about war, politics, etc. In the book, the British seek to stamp out any opposing viewpoints to their rule because they recognize the power of the press. Benjamin Franklin felt so strongly about the newspaper that he gave his life trying to save it. When people cannot debate, disagree and continue a public discourse about important issues, they cease to be free.

9:07 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that the power of the press was really strong. To destroy something like that because you think it will change peoples mind. I mean you look in the newspapers and you see all this stuff about presidents and goveners and actors. Everyone sees that and they're all like oh my gosh I can't believe that is happening that believe everything they watch and hear. Maybe if people toke the time to ask the world wouldn't be so messed up.

8:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think that the power of the press is really strong and very well oriented because of what they can say without people getting mad. but then when it hits somebody else they just go bellistic it's really weird to do that b/c people get paid now days to say or type that kind of things on paper.

Tyler B

2:39 PM  

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