Paperboy: using newspaper archives in school history
Why newspaper articles?
Although they can seem dull, long and
devoid of images, newspapers often contain high quality pieces from some of the
world's greatest writers. Introducing pupils to quality writing from the
broadsheet newpapers, and getting pupils to read some of these articles can be
an important step in moving from the 'bite-size' and 'picture' mentality which
prevails in many text books, to being able to sustain concentration and
persevere with longer and more challenging sections of extended writing. If
they are going to go on to university, which some of them will, they need to
get into the idea of reading extended text which has no pictures in
it.
The Paperboy (www.thepaperboy.com) was/is a
very useful gateway/portal site which provides a link into hundreds of papers
worldwide. Whenever anything historically controversial happens (introduction
of Holocaust Commemoration day, debates about whether there is such a thing as
'The British Race'), it makes it easy to get a range of newspaper opinion about
the issue. Sadly, what had been a completely free site has recently imposed a
subscription fee. Although it's not much (I seem to remember it was something
like $2.95 per month), I am aware that it is off-putting. You can get to most
British newspapers by just typing their name into an ordinary internet search.
Many sites now have a quite sophisticated archiving system so that you can get
articles published over the past few years. Some also provide animations,
special reports, cartoons etc (for example, Steve Bell's cartoons in The
Guardian).
Some examples (tabloid press also have sites,
some better than others, can be particularly good for headlines and sensational
stories- 'London bus found on the moon' etc.
The following examples give some ideas
about the sort of materials which can be accessed by these sites. Many of the
articles are long and dense, and may not be appropriate for younger or low
ability pupils, but the teacher can talk the pupils through them a la John
Fines, or the articles can serve as extension work for more able pupils to read
for homework, pairs of pupils can precis them and feedback to the rest of the
class, or they can be simply summarised in class, and left for any pupils who
may be interested in reading the full article. Sometimes they can simply be
helpful for developing your subject knowledge of a topic, to improve the
quality and depth of your exposition on the topic. You will find that a lot of
the articles come from The Guardian. This is partly because it is the
newspaper that I read, many other newspaper archives are equally good sources
of pertinent articles.
Some articles are simply 'updates' on
historical issues or problems, some are polemics, revisionist views on
historical controversies, or reviews of new history books from the broadsheet
press. Newspaper sites are particularly helpful for getting hold of a range of
resources on things like 9/11, debates on British Identity, The Holocaust,
'Great Britons' and the place of history in society.
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Some examples:
- Andrew Alexander, Guardian 19
April 2002, 'The Soviet threat was a myth' ('Stalin had no intention of
attacking the west. We were to blame for the cold war.'
- Catherine Hall, Guardian
20 April 2002, 'The egalitarian instinct' ('The British anti-slavery movement
was grounded in the belief that colonial subjects could be "civilised" by
Christianity. But, writes Catherine Hall, this vision gave way to a harsher
view of race.')
- Adam Sisman, Observer, 8
July 2001, 'Independence? No thanks', ('Most Black Americans did not back the
patriots in 1775- particularly those with neither property nor rights.') Review
of Ray raphael, The Americal Revolution: a people's
history.
- James Maycock, Guardian, 15
September 2001, 'War within war' (Account of Black Americans' experience of the
VietnamWar).
- Marcus Tanner,
Independent, 29 June 2001, 'From great dictator to bloody pariah: how
the world caught up with the Butcher of Belgrade' (Compares recent events in
the Balkans with the rise and fall of the dictators in the
30s/40s).
- Jan Marsh, Guardian, 21
April 2001, 'The real Uncle Tom' ('The only black exhibitor at the Victorian
Great Exhibition was a fugitive slave. He bacame the toast of Britain, met th
equeen and inspired Beecher Stowe's seminal novel')
- Timothy Garton Ash,
Guardian 5 May 2001, 'Orwell for our time', ('He was the most
influential and prescient political writer of the 20th century, argues Timothy
Garton Ash, but does he have any relevance today?')
- Richard Evans, Guardian, 6
February 2001, 'Facts to fight over' ('A new book about the Irving trial is set
to reignite the row about what history is')
- Morris Berman, Guardian, 6
October 2001, 'Waiting for the barbarians', ('A once great empire, Rome, fell
into catastrophic cultural and economic decline. (Morris Berman on chilling
parallels with modern America.).
- Richard Trueman, Guardian, 21
July 2001, 'Mistaken Identity' ('A new suspect behind the Black
Death').
- Eric Hobsbawn, Guardian,
23 February 2002, 'War and Peace', ('The past 100 years changed the nature of
war. With conflict worldwide showing no sign of abating, historian Eric
Hobsbawn assesses the prospects for stability in the new
century.')
- Michael Hardt, Observer,
15 July 2001, 'Empire', ('This extract from 'Empire' drawn from the book's
preface, argues that the transformations of the new global order make the
emerging Empire quite different from previous eras of imperial dominance and
capitalist expansion, opening new spaces for political projects seeking to
construct a truly democratic global society).
- Bill Clinton, Guardian, 26
January 2002, 'World without walls', (How do we defeat global
terrorism?)
- Telegraph, 10 December
2000, '6 leading figures say what it means to be British'
(lineone.net/telegraph/2000/10/12/news/i_54.html
- Maggie O' Kane, Guardian,
21 May 2001, 'Welcome to Britain' ('The truth about Asylum and Immigration; a
special 3 day investigation- with statistics).
- Lewis Lord, US News, 1
August 2001, 'The year One', (' Life really was nasty, brutish and short 2,000
years ago but the issues of the day were surprisingly modern.')
www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/010108/one.htm
- Linda Colley, Guardian 7
September 2001, (letters page) 'Slaves to history'
- Linda Colley, Observer, 12
December 1999, 'Blueprint for Britain', ('On the eve of a new century, one of
our foremost historians has told Tony Blair and 100 guests at 10 Downing Street
to forget notions of British identity and concentrate on a nation of
citizens').
- Burhan Wazir, Observer, 23
September 2001, 'The man from Mecca', profile of the prophet Muhammad, ('His
name has been invoked to justify the killing of more than 6,000 people in the
11 September terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. But who was the man
who founded a religion now claiming 2 billion followers?)
- A.C. Grayling, Guardian,
10 September 2001, 'The last word on..... Power'; (one of a series of
polemics/reflections on important philosophical /historical
concepts).
- Simon Caulkin, Observer, 8
July 2001, 'Poor Man's capitalism' ('The affluent few are not the consumers of
the future', interesting follow up/update for thinking about contemporary
issues arising from study of the Industrial Revolution).
- Ben Rogers, Guardian, 19
April 2002, 'Just deserts' ('Common sense says that people who contribute more
deserve bigger rewards, so why do political philosophers find meritocracy so
distasteful?)
- As an exercise in using the
archive facility of the online version of The Guardian, have a go at looking
for an article by Jonathan Raban, 'Here we go again'; round about Nov/Dec 2002.
It is an excellent example of how 'historical perspectives' can help to provide
insight to current issues and crises- it details very convincingly how current
thinking on Iraq is hampered by a lack of understanding of how the state of
Iraq was formed.
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