The Editorial Side of the City Papers

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By 1861, two San Francisco newspapers now openly condoned genocide. They would write in an editorial: "We believe the manner in which the Indians are being exterminated is perfectly horrible" The journalists operating in the city environments had far more freedom because their lives were not as endangered as journalists who stood up on behalf of California Indians in rural areas.

In this extended interview, we speak with UCLA Associate Professor Benjamin Madley about his book, "An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe," and discuss how newspapers, tracts, and paperbacks were an essential element in assisting and priming the public for the genocide of California's native population.

Prof. Madley's work was instrumental in our research for previous Citations Needed episodes - namely, "Episode 158: How Notions of 'Blight' and 'Barrenness' Were Created to Erase Indigenous Peoples" and "Episode 172: The Foundational Myth Machine - Indigenous Peoples of North America and Hollywood" - so we were thrilled to dig even deeper into his work on this special News Brief.