Beach Haven

Bibliography
​Hespelt, E. Herman, Irving A. Leonard, John T. Reid, John A. Crow, and John E. Englekirk, . 1946. An Anthology of Spanish American Literature. New York: Appleton-Century-Crosts, Inc.
 
This anthology contains many original works, and excerpts of original works. As the title implies, all the authors are Hispanic. One could argue that first portion authors are not American authors, but rather Spanish authors writing in the ‘new world.’ For example, some of the more interesting writings to me are up front. They include memoirs of several Spanish conquistadors, contemporaneously written by members of their teams with specific assignment to capture events. These were generally also religious representatives intending to convert indigenous people to Christianity. As a reader of history, one has to take these accounts for what they are. The saying goes that history is written by the victor. Reading these sorts of historical memoirs, I tend to assume they are only loosely true, but they do show a great deal about the perspectives of the author if not the subjects.

I think my favorite section includes gaucho stories. These are mostly poems and remind me of comedic cowboy poetry of the American ‘wild west’. I found the most entertaining to be Fausto written in 1866 by Estanisao del Campo. In the poem, Anastasio el Pollo relates to his gaucho buddy Laguna the story of Faust. He stumbles into an opera house while visiting the city. He sees the play and believes he is watching actual events happening in front of him. He has never been to a play and did not understand the idea of fiction. The whole thing reminds me a bit of some of the work done by Andy Griffith when he would recount Shakespearian plays using ‘down home’ or ‘red neck’ expressions and a southern accent to tell the story.

As one might guess, this anthology contains a wide range of prose and poetry, some comedic, others patriotic, historical, or emotional. Their is a short exposition in English at the beginning section of each writer's works giving a short bio of the author and some descriptions of their writing style and focus. The actual works are in the original Spanish. Since the writings range from the 1500s through the mid-1900s, and includes authors from many countries, the Spanish language used differs from piece to piece. I was comfortable with most of it, but kept an online dictionary close at hand. 
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Bibliography
​Schwartz, A. B. (2015). Broadcast Histeria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News. New York: Hill and Wang.
 
In the broadcast industry, the events during the radio broadcast led by Orson Welles is the stuff of legend. It was said that as people believed they were hearing real news interruptions into otherwise normal programming, they went crazy collectively. The broadcast warned up front it was a fictitious portrayal. Several times during the program similar messages were shared. Yet, people often tuned in during times that did not include the caveats. Supposedly, people ran out into the street screaming. Others packed up the family car and headed for the proverbial hills. A few are said to have committed suicide. In this work, Schwartz examines many of these myths and debunks them. He does share some examples where a relatively small number of people did think the program real and started fleeing, but these documented examples are few.
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What Schwartz does document is a somewhat skeptical public. Newsrooms and police station phones rang off the hook. People were looking for some sort of official confirmation to what they were hearing. Was there really a Martian invasion in progress? Were people dying by alien death rays?

In the chapter titled ‘Journalism and Showmanship’ the author examines how the news covered a real story of the same time period, specifically the Lindberg baby kidnapping. Sensationalism in reporting inspired people to flood the Lindberg estate. Charles Lindberg was a celebrity in his day. He was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. “Within half an hour, newsrooms in three states had gotten word of the crime and begun frantically revising their front pages” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 13). Much of the Welles fictional story had the same trappings of what people experienced during the immediate aftermath of the Lindberg kidnapping story. The storytellers were acting in a believable manner. In other words, they were good at their writing and acting craft.

Schwartz wonders if things are all that different today. Whether one calls it fake news, misinformation, disinformation, or whatever the newest terms will become, there are people who purposefully copy realism fictitiously. Welles was in it for entertainment, and perhaps that the same goal of some modern-day trolls. It seems clear to me that some of this effort is not just for a joke, but with specific outcomes intended. Motives may be political, social, or criminal, but each looks to sway some portion of the population into a preference action or inaction. Schwartz shares several examples such as ‘the Veracruz Twitter panic’ in the popular resort of Veracruz, Mexico. A few residents of the city started reporting crimes and violence throughout the city that were not actually happening. The reports were forwarded by others, then picked up by some websites that “capitalized on this by writing fake news stories with provocative headlines” noting how such headlines “can generate a small fortune in ad revenue by exploiting gullibility” (Schwartz, 2015, p. 223).

In the same page, Schwartz does note that “the same technology that spread that false report also made it possible to verify the story in almost no time at all” (Ibid.). He argues that Americans were skeptical of the original Martian attack story but seem to be more inclined to accept the stories about the hysteria that ensued. He suggests we apply skepticism in both stories and meta-stories we hear. Perhaps we should be less inclined to accept those stories that seem to fit a narrative we already accept.