Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Scandal Sells: The Rise of the American Exposé

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

Today on Here's Where It Gets Interesting we are going to switch gears a bit. We’ve been talking about first ladies and the many people who were closely acquainted with the founding fathers. But what did the rest of the country know about the events and actions happening in the capital city? Where did they get their news? It should come as no surprise to you that political bias and tabloid sensationalism in American media grew right alongside the new nation. Let’s see how journalists affected the political atmosphere of the new nation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. So happy you're here with me today. And we are going to switch gears a little bit. We've been talking about First Ladies and the many people who were closely acquainted in a variety of ways with the Founding Fathers. city? Where did they get their news? It should come as no surprise to you that political bias and tabloid sensationalism in American media grew right alongside the new nation. It is not new. You cannot be like, well, cable news has wrecked it up. Keep listening because here's where it gets interesting. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. First, let me start by saying that sensational journalism and criticizing the government in print was not new and not unique to the United States, right? As long as there have been people in power, there have been people writing about people in power. In fact, one of the most well-known political journalists in the years following the Revolutionary War was a Scottish man by the name of James Callender, who was

forced to flee Scotland after putting the British government on blast. James Callender was born in 1758, and he did not have any sort of formal education, but was taught to read and write when he was a boy. He secured an early job in Edinburgh as a clerk working in the city's office that filed land deeds. And he was a bit of a pot stirrer from the very beginning. And he began publishing anonymous satirical pieces on prominent British leaders and thinkers, like writer Samuel Johnson, who was an outspoken member of the British Conservative Party. Scotland had been an independent political entity until 1707, when it was unified with the Kingdom of Great Britain. Callender's writings were popular with the Scottish, many of whom retained their pride in Scottish nationalism. He was a champion of the little guy and regularly wrote scathing pamphlets

about the wealthy and the powerful. Turns out, that didn't sit well with his employers. He was fired from his position when he was in his early 30s. He was supported financially by a few Scottish noblemen who were fans of his work. And in 1792, he published The Political Progress of Britain, which was a critique of war, imperialism, taxes, and government corruption. Do any of these topics still resonate today? King George was not impressed. Callender was still publishing anonymously, but now that he had patrons, his identity was not safe. He fled to Ireland for a short time and then boarded a ship bound for the United States to avoid persecution and arrest for sedition. When he arrived in Philadelphia in 1793, the Revolutionary War

had been won, the Constitution had been written, the Bill of Rights had been passed, and George Washington was already serving his term as president. James quickly found himself in the epicenter of American politics. He took a job as a congressional reporter. At the time, Congress did not have regular official stenographers to record or transcribe their proceedings. There was no C-SPAN in 1793. Instead, reporters were hired by several different newspapers and they would use their own individual versions of shorthand to write down what they heard in congressional sessions. This would often lead to accidental or sometimes purposeful inaccuracies printed in the newspapers. Callender was a fast writer with a knack for precision.

And somewhat diabolically, he enjoyed recording the more, shall we say, off-the-cuff comments that some members of Congress would make during session. And he would share everything with readers, even the nonsense. He had strong opinions about politics and a platform with which to champion the members he agreed with and diminish the politicians he disagreed with. Y'all, nothing is new under the sun. In 1795, he published a compilation of his recordings of the congressional debates over a period of two years. And guess what? It did not sit well with either political party, neither the Federalists nor the Democratic Republicans. So let's recap about how these parties started and what they represented. If you've seen the show Hamilton, you know that Hamilton and Jefferson did not particularly get along well. They both started out as advisors to George Washington, and Washington famously warned Americans in his farewell address that the formation

of political parties would be to the detriment of a well-functioning government. He said, would be to the detriment of a well and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. That is not a lie. And even though he said that, politicians and the people began to fall into two camps, with many supporting the politics of people like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, who went on to become leaders of the Federalist Party, and others agreeing with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who led the Democratic Republicans. Others agreeing with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who led the Democratic Republicans. The Federalist Party under Hamilton believed in the need for a strong central government.

They thought it would protect the freedoms that they had fought for in the American Revolution and called for the creation of a national bank to increase the government's control over the economy. By contrast, the Democratic Republicans placed importance on protecting individual rights and freedoms. They wanted the federal government to take a smaller role, leaving much of the nation's governance up to the states. And in January of 1796, Congress considered replacing the newspaper reporters with an official stenographer. But they didn't exactly get around to following through with their plan until a number of years later. But James Callender's employer fired him anyway. Callender always had someone willing to publish his work. Historian Eric Burns writes that the golden age of America's founding was also the gutter age of American reporting.

Newspapers were all partisan and published vicious things about their party opponents. Reporters and editors would shout curses at each other in the streets and liberally use words like depraved, worthless, vile, and wicked to describe their enemies. They make today's media look tame by comparison in many ways. And Callender was no exception. He wrote scathing pieces that criticized the elements of the U.S. Constitution that he thought were undemocratic, like the Electoral College. He wrote that the Senate was unrepresentative because it was not directly elected by the people. People did not start directly electing their senators for some time later. He even went after George Washington saying that he had debauched and deceived the nation by promoting himself as a popular idol. He was a fierce advocate of the free press. He said,

the more that a nation knows about the mode of conducting its business, the better chance has that business of being properly conducted. In other words, the more that people know about how business is done, the better chance we have of that business being done well. He thought that people had a right to hold their leaders accountable and that the press was the perfect conduit for political transparency. I have said this many times. As much as people like to criticize the media today, a free press is absolutely integral to a democracy. We would be nothing without it. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey.

We are best friends. And together, we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio!

Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there.

Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. As Callender's career took off, his writing started to grow increasingly partisan. He considered himself a supporter of the Democratic-Republican Party and began writing some seriously savage attacks on prominent members of the Federalists, including both Adams and Hamilton. By now, George Washington had retired back to Mount Vernon and John Adams had started his term as president. John Adams was a Federalist and faced strong opposition from Thomas Jefferson. We've talked a little about how Adams and Jefferson enjoyed a close relationship at first, and then that soured when Jefferson began undermining Adams' political

decisions while he was in office. And then, of course, Jefferson began undermining Adams' political decisions while he was in office. And then, of course, Jefferson ran against Adams in the election of 1800. Jefferson was acquainted with James Callender. He had read some of his work against the British government and found the writer to be sharp-witted and cunning. When Jefferson learned that one of the pieces Callender was writing was an expose on Alexander Hamilton, he ponied up some of his own money to make sure it was finished and published.

He saw the value in smearing the reputation of his biggest political opponent. And if you've seen Hamilton, you know what's coming next. The story was called A History of the United States for the Year 1796 and was published in several installments in the early summer of 1797. Callender exposed the affair between married Alexander Hamilton and an also married woman named Mariah Reynolds. The work also alleged that Hamilton was financially corrupt because he was working with Mariah's husband, James. In August, Hamilton did damage control. He published his own pamphlet in response, what we now know as the Reynolds pamphlet. And in it,

he did, however, confess to the adultery and state that he had been paying James Reynolds to keep quiet about the affair. Callender insisted that Hamilton's blackmail story was just a smokescreen for larger financial corruption, but the accusations were never proven. Interesting, right? Wildly unproven accusations about the other side's corruption? What? That's not new. But the damage had been done. The country could not get enough of this type of scandal. Hamilton's reputation was badly tarnished. While he may have proven that he was not involved in speculation alongside Reynolds, he did so by embarrassing his wife. He continued to be an influential Federalist and work in high-profile roles under the Adams

presidency, but his own presidential aspirations never came to fruition. The public was not quick to forget his scandals. Callender's attacks on Hamilton paled in comparison to the deluge of published insults that he directed at President John Adams. In 1799, Callender was working on a new pamphlet called The Prospects Before Us. He was being bankrolled by Jefferson and accused the president of planning to crown himself king and groom his son, John Quincy, to be the heir to his throne. Oh, look, one political rival paying the media to print scandalous information about his opponent. Callender attacked Adams, saying, among many other things, that the president has neither the force of a man nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman. Unfortunately for Callender, John Adams did not let his slander slide.

He was prosecuted under the new Sedition Act that made it a crime for American citizens to print, utter, or publish false, scandalous, and malicious writing about the government. So let me say that again. about the government. So let me say that again. The Sedition Act made it a crime for Americans to even talk about criticizing the government. You could not print, utter, or publish false, scandalous, and malicious writing about the government. And in essence, what the Sedition Act was doing was prohibiting public opposition to the government. You could be fined, you could be imprisoned if you were found to be in violation of this law. And under this law, over 20 Democratic Republican newspaper editors were arrested and some were imprisoned. Imagine that today, my friends. Imagine the federal government arresting 20 Fox and CNN reporters, putting them on trial for saying mean things about people in

the government and then imprisoning some of them. That is exactly what happened at the turn of the 19th century. The most dramatic representation of this was in an episode that we previously released about the state of Vermont, and it tells the story about Representative Matthew Lyon, who wrote a letter criticizing President Adams. And in this letter, he said that Adams had an unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and self-avarice, and he was sentenced to nine months in prison. And famously, while he was in prison, his constituents re-elected him to Congress while he was in jail. Callender's written work against the Federalists had cast some serious doubts on the Adams presidency, and it likely helped secure Thomas Jefferson's victory in the election of 1800. Of course, I've spoken about the election of 1800 before, in which Aaron Burr is elected vice president, and John Adams comes in third in the contest.

When Jefferson took office, he immediately pardoned Callender. And once he got out of jail, Callender expected that President Jefferson would reward him for his work and his loyalty. He wanted the job of port collector for Richmond, Virginia, but he didn't get it. And when he wrote Jefferson to ask him for money to fund a new newspaper, he said in the letter, for the cause I have lost five years of labor, gained 5,000 enemies, got my name inserted in 500 libels. I mention these particulars as this is probably the close of my correspondence with you, that you may not suppose that I at least have anything by their victories of republicanism. But Jefferson did not write back, because Jefferson now had a problem. Calendar scathing reporting benefited the

Democratic-Republican party during a competitive election, but not so much once Jefferson secured the presidency. In fact, once John Adams left office and Alexander Hamilton was killed by Aaron Burr, there were no more Federalists left. They died off and the Democratic-Republicans became the only game in town for a period of time. So Jefferson recognized the need to separate himself from Callender, who had this very radical reputation. Jefferson stopped financially supporting Callender and distanced himself from the man even as the scandal broke that Jefferson had been paying him to write about his political enemies. Jefferson wrote in a letter to James Monroe at the time saying, I am really mortified at the

base ingratitude of Callender. He presents human nature in a hideous form. He tried to publicly pass off his relationship with Callender as nothing more than a charity case. One newspaper called the Aurora went so far as to turn the tables on Callender, publishing a sensationalized story and insinuating that while Callender's wife had been dying of syphilis and their children were starving, he had been having his usual pint of brandy at breakfast. James Callender once again took to his pen for revenge. It was Callender who broke the scandalous news that Jefferson had several illegitimate children with the enslaved

Sally Hemings. In his article, he wrote, it is well known that the man whom it delighteth the public to honor, keeps, and for many years past has kept as his concubine, one of his slaves. Her name is Sally. The name of their eldest son is Tom. His features are said to bear a striking, although sable, resemblance to the president himself. By this woman, Sally, our president, had several children. She is said to officiate as a housekeeper at Monticello. The story did not destroy Jefferson or his career as Callender hoped that it would. He was too popular and the accusation that he had fathered Sally's children could only be speculated upon and not proved. They didn't have DNA tests. They didn't have any way to

verify such things. Jefferson's public image and reputation was also saved in part by another journalist, a gossip column writer named Margaret Bayard Smith. At 22, a young Margaret Hodge, the daughter of a respected Pennsylvania mayor, married Samuel Harrison Smith, who was a well-connected journalist. So well-connected that he was asked by President Thomas Jefferson to move to Washington, D.C. to start a newspaper, the Daily Intelligencer. Margaret had been educated at a boarding school as a girl and was a talented writer. As she accompanied her husband to dinners and events with the social elite of Washington, she began to quietly observe what she saw. She raised three children at home, but also began testing the waters of a writing career by publishing small, anonymous articles in her husband's newspaper.

She did this strategically, writing fluffy stuff that was considered appropriate for women, but she began name-dropping along the way, she added descriptions about politicians' homes and weaved in details about high-profile social events. Soon, the public was eating up her words. They wanted more reports on high society, and Margaret was happy to oblige. She wrote about the who's who of D.C., sparing no detail about their personalities and her thoughts on their manners, their dress, and even their political actions. Emboldened by her success, she even began publishing under her own name, Good Heavens, a woman writing a newspaper article. So it was Margaret who reassured the public that President Jefferson, even amid scandal,

was a stalwart and trustworthy leader. She wrote, and is this, said I, after my first interview with Mr. Jefferson, the violent Democrat, the vulgar demagogue, the bold atheist and profligate man I have so often heard denounced by the Federalists? Can this man, so meek and mild, yet dignified in his manners, with a voice so soft and low, with a countenance so intelligent, can he be that daring leader of a fraction, the disturber of the peace, that enemy of all rank and order? In other words, she was saying, he's so nice, he's so quiet, he's so sweet, he's so kind, he absolutely cannot be what you make him out to be. Margaret, of course, had a picture to paint like any other journalist of her time. She enjoyed unlimited access to the capital's inner city for only as long as she wrote positive things about them.

She relied on her reputation as a harmless, busybody and social butterfly to get close to the people that she wrote about. Her writing played an undeniably important role in shaping the way the public viewed politicians. While Callender and other expose-producing journalists were working toward the destruction of each other, Margaret knew the value of a united nation. She knew that the citizens of the young country needed stability in their leadership, and she used her writing skills to give them reasons to trust their government. Margaret, by the way, met First Lady Dolly Madison during a dinner at the White House while Jefferson was in office. She liked both James and Dolly immediately, and the ever-agreeable Dolly shared a similar fondness for Margaret. The two women became

lifelong friends and allies. They exchanged novels with each other, sent each other little trinkets of affection, and wrote back and forth about the political news of the week. Once James Callender failed in his attempt to ruin Jefferson's career, he hit rock bottom. Always a heavy drinker, he began hitting the bottle even harder, and he severed ties with many of his newspaper partners and financial supporters. Callender was reported to have been seen stumbling around drunk on the morning of July 17, 1803. And later that day, his body was pulled from the James River in Richmond, Virginia. He had fallen into three feet of water and was too inebriated to lift himself out of it. Although he had only spent 12 years in the

United States before his death, a critic gave James Callender the title of the most outrageous and wretched scandalmonger of a scurrilous age. He wasn't the first scandalmonger to use his pen to expose and discredit politicians. And where he left off, others picked up. Margaret, in contrast, went on to enjoy much fame. In the 1820s, she published two books under her real name and became one of the most effective writers of her time. In a posthumously published memoir, Margaret posed the question, a man's sphere is unlimited, but I'm a woman. And society says, thus far and no further shall thou come. Why then has nature given me a mind so active and inquiring? That is a fantastic question. I'm so glad you were able to join me today,

and hopefully this sheds some light on the partisan nature of the press that has always been in the United States and forever shall be, for better or for worse. I'll see you soon. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much.

This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.