The Man in the Crowd by Edgar Allan Poe as a Satire by Penny PressIn the mid-19th century, the "penny journal" was found on almost every American urban street corner. These penny papers, as they were commonly called, provided the American people, for the first time in history, with informative articles about events, incidents, and, most importantly, crime in the inner cities. These shreds revealed an entirely new world to American citizens; they were informed for the first time of the many heinous crimes and murders committed in the immediate vicinity of their own homes. At a time when America was first confronting such local injustices, it is entirely understandable that penny newspapers purporting to present factual accounts of local life and crime were a primary source of intrigues. It was known that Americans bought these newspapers daily for a penny each, just to satisfy their hungry curiosity. However, penny paper reporters, hoping to increase their newspaper sales, often exaggerated or sensationalized actual incidents of murder or theft to the point that they bore little or no resemblance to the actual events that occurred. they had initially observed. A simple accident, for example, would be presented as a foiled attempt at a brutal murder, and a single murder would often be portrayed as a horrific massacre. The more outlandish these items became, the more likely Americans were to buy them. The demand for sensationalism became so popular among the American people, in fact, that many journalists often resorted to creating completely exaggerated stories about ordinary people when they ran out of paper. incidents related to real crimes that must be exaggerated...... middle of paper...... to ridiculously invent a sensational crime where there is clearly no crime, Poe could very well to suggest that the Penny Press journalists of the Times could not be trusted because they too were outright liars about common daily incidents. With this in mind, it can be said that Poe's short story "The Man of the Crowd" is a story intended to suggest that the sensational and savage criminals who were so frequently featured in the penny press newspaper articles of his day were in reality nothing more than the ordinary people in the crowd. Works Cited Crawford, Nelson Antrim. The ethics of journalism. New York: Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1969. 42, 46-47, 110-111. O'Neill Edward. The complete poems and short stories of Edgar Allan Poe with selections from his critical writings. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973. 308-314.