From the accounts of various Kentucky newspapers, I was able to learn a few facts about Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, as well as the attitudes of his fellow Kentuckians. The first thing I noticed in all the newspapers that I viewed was that almost all the articles written about the fight were written by writers from either the Associated Press (AP) or United Press International (UPI).
This displayed three things about the Kentucky press, first the belief that Clay’s fight was not important enough to cover themselves, secondly that the newspapers probably did not make enough money to send their own reporters own to Miami Beach, and finally the localization of the newspapers’ audiences. Another aspect of the fight is the effect it had on Kentucky society, especially the sports scene.
I primarily noticed that almost all the papers used reports from the Associated Press and the United Press International, even the (Louisville) Courier-Journal, one of Clay’s hometown newspapers, used reports from the Associated Press. The only articles that were not written by a member of the Associated Press were the very rare editorials written about the fight. The use of reports from the AP and the UPI shows that most newspapers did not think the ight was very newsworthy.
Only one newspaper published an article that was not written by a member of the Associated Press or the United Press International, however that one article was an editorial about Cassius Clay’s new found wealth and not the actual fight. The lack of coverage also proves that even though blacks were supposed to be equal to whites, that in reality achievements by blacks and whites were treated differently.
None of the newspapers that I read displayed a large picture or headline proclaiming that Cassius Clay was the new heavyweight champion of the world. Most newspapers had an average sized eadline stating that Clay was the new champion, but none had an article about him on the front page. This further illustrates that achievements by blacks were believed to be less important than the achievements of whites. I saw almost the same amount of articles on high school basketball, as I did on the fight.
Although I am not surprised by the fact that high school basketball received almost a page of coverage, I am alarmed by the fact that this one page of coverage on basketball was the same amount of coverage for the boxing match. The stories by Associated Press and United Press International illustrate wo more facts about Kentucky during the 1960’s, primarily that most of Kentucky’s newspapers were too poor to send their own reporters to Miami Beach, and furthermore that the audience was very localized to events either in their own city or the state of Kentucky.
Although I am not surprised that newspapers such as the Paducah Sun-Democrat or Bowling Green’s Park City Daily News did not send reporters to Miami, I was surprised that newspapers like Louisville’s Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald, which have a much larger circulation, did not send even one reporter from their staff to cover the fight. The absence f reporters from the (Louisville) Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald proves that even the newspapers from the major cities in Kentucky had a very localized audience.
The localization of news often prevented readers from learning about the world that surrounds them, especially from affairs of other towns. For example, if the Lexington Herald only wrote reports about the events effecting the city and a few major events that would effect the entire state, it would be possible that something occurred in Paducah that might not be reported in Lexington for several days, even months.
The localization in rural areas uch as Paducah and Bowling Green is not surprising, but when urban places like Louisville and Lexington localize their news many important events in other areas of the state could not be reported for an extended period of time. The most important effect of Cassius Clay defeating Sonny Liston is the placement of Kentucky, and specifically Louisville on the map of boxing. For many years there were numerous boxing gyms in and around Louisville that produced great amateur fighters. Unfortunately, they were ignored by the national media until Cassius Clay, who was a product of such gyms, defeated
Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship. When Clay won the gold medal in the 178-pounds division in the 1960 Rome Olympics Louisville’s gyms gained some recognition for producing Clay, however they were not fully recognized until 1964 when Clay beat Liston. Clay’s victory made the gyms in Louisville more popular as more and more youths flocked to the gyms in the hopes of one day becoming heavyweight champion of the world. Although none of these kids would ever win the heavyweight championship, their efforts in the ring made Louisville one of the centers of amateur boxing.
Overall from my research I learned about the different attitudes of people in the 1960’s versus the 1990’s. I also realized that Kentucky newspapers almost always localize their news and hardly publish national or international news articles that do not come from the Associated Press or some other news agency. I now understand why Kentucky is so far behind the other states, it is because Kentuckians are only exposed to news that affects them and nobody else. Most Kentuckians could not care about what is occurring in Bosnia, nor do the newspapers report what is occurring there, which isolates Kentucky from the rest of the world.
