clay Beats Liston: February 25, 1964 :: essays research papers fc

"Clay Beats Liston: February 25, 1964" 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 down 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 fight 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 headline 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 two more facts about Kentucky during the 1960's, primarily that most of