"If it Bleeds, It Leads!" or, Rise of a Popular Print Culture

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The above quote I used in the title is the mantra of Jake Gyllenhaal's character in the 2014 film Nightcralwer. In the movie, Gyllenhaal plays a man looking to get a start up in the local news business of Los Angeles by filming crimes and car accidents in an effort to shock viewers and thus, increase the popularity of the station he works for.

This is not a new idea, by any means. In fact, the portrayal of this idea has only gotten larger. If that sentence seems vague then allow me to clarify: film and television continually push the bounds of what can and cannot be shown to an audience. A horror movie may come out next week that has to do with rape and murder, shown in graphic detail, but a film in the 1930's never would have crossed that line. To go back and look at a shift in the public perception: Vietnam war footage was first broadcast on American televisions in 1968 featuring scenes of prisoner executions and bombings. There has been a gradual increase in the tolerance of viewers and because I have noticed that and taken interest in studying this area, I chose to look at "The Bloody Register" for this blog post.

"A Select and Judicious Collection of the Most Remarkable Trials, For, Murder, Treason, Rape, Sodomy, Highway Robbery, Pyracy, House-Breaking, Perjury, Forgery, and other high Crimes, and Misdemeanors, From the year 1700, to the year 1764, inclusive." reads the title page of what already proves to be a colorful publishing.

The purpose of this work was to provide the public with embellished stories of crime that refer to social issues at the time. (Wikipedia, one of the only places with information I could pull from...) The Bloody Register editors were in support of Protestantism and the Church of England, but were not fond of Catholicism and the Commonwealth.

The style of the work feels embellished. A story is told that leads up the crime, including persons involved and the reasoning behind the committing of the crime. I cannot find any information that says where the editors received their information. I can gather that they had heard a summary of the events that led to the crime and therefore filled in the blanks on their own. No witnesses are referenced. Writing these cases like stories is very interesting and this style recalls how Addison and Steele wrote stories (although made-up) on different types of people they had encountered in real life.The dialogue is dramatic and intriguing. A flashy title and an interesting array of characters either reinforcing the desired mentality of a good Protestant or denying it, and then the culmination of a crime.

This is like reading an early detective novel. If a detective novel is to be interesting, you must include some sort of build-up, and provide evidence/motive of the perpetrator. This story is one that will tell you what happens at the end but reading it can still teach a lesson and entertain.

Works cited
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Newgate_Calendar

http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/21cc/crime/media1/calendar1/facts1/facts.html

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