Celebrity and newspaper coverage are interdependent. Magazines featured the latest news about famous people because there was a common interest in their lives that increased sales. At the same time, individuals gained more publicity and a broader reputation when they appeared in the papers because more people got to know them. The way a newspaper reports about a celebrity has an impact on their public image. “Publicity could therefore have, and still can have, both favorable and unfavorable consequences for those caught in its beam” (Montgomery 155). When Alice recounts looking through some old newspaper articles, she is astonished by how much her public appearance was interpreted by the press: “Most of the accounts were kindly, many delightfully humorous. The vulgarity and inaccuracy of others is goose-flesh raising. Some in the foreign papers were worse, if possible, than our ‘yellow journals.’ [sensational journalism] But I suppose we were fair game for the press of the day” (Roosevelt Longworth 128). This comes to show that newspapers don’t necessarily represent a person accurately, and that their narratives shape different conceptions among the consumers. It also pinpoints the dependence on and duality of media interest for celebrities. The advantages include “a degree of prestige and influence […]. But press attention also had its negative side: the lack of privacy, unwanted surveillance, the risk of exposure, or misrepresentation” (Montgomery 151). In the following, we will take a look at how Town Topics and The New York Times each report about Alice Roosevelt in the above presented time period, how their manners differ, and what we can draw from this about the newspapers and Alice’s published reputation.

A strongly indicative difference in the way The New York Times and Town Topics respectively write about Alice Roosevelt can be seen in the names and terms they use to refer to her. While The New York Times sticks to mostly her full name or her last name, they always combine it with the polite form of address that was proper at the time, so it’s either “Miss Alice Roosevelt” or “Miss Roosevelt”, and “Mrs. Alice Longworth” or “Mrs. Longworth” after Alice’s marriage. This corresponds to the overall style that the newspaper is composed of. Not for nothing does The New York Times serve as a reputable comparison to Town Topics: their manner of reporting is rather neutral and descriptive, they stick to the facts and figures, and they keep a professional and respectful distance toward the subject of their writing. They don’t report rumors in a sensational manner much like Town Topics does, whose main medium of exchange was “information, gossip, rumor, and innuendo” (Montgomery 1). Town Topics already chatters of flirtation between Alice Roosevelt and Nicholas Longworth from their earliest involvements on (see fig. 16, 39) and prides itself on these speculations later on when they turn out to be true (see fig. 42) while The New York Times doesn’t mention any particular connection early on (see fig. 15) but reports matter-of-factly about the engagement rumors when they’re up to date (see fig. 38). And yet, The New York Times can—like all newspapers—sometimes be faulty in their reports, for example when they rely on hearsay about events during Alice’s journey to Asia so that she has to set the record straight upon her return to the USA (see fig. 38).

In terms of referencing Alice, Town Topics also states her address and full or last name, especially in the earlier years of her celebrity. The label “President’s daughter” or “daughter of the President” is something that both papers frequently use. It communicates Alice’s rank and has recognition value for the public. Even if somebody hasn’t heard the name Alice Roosevelt, the mention of the relation to the President would be sure to ring a bell with almost everyone. However, the Saunterer—the author of Town Topics’ society column “Saunterings”—gets more creative with his referring to Alice over time as her popularity increases. He comes up with names such as “Exhibit A” (see fig. 14) to satirize the Horse Show where Alice was the main attraction or uses a casual first name reference of ”Alice” (see fig. 12) that makes it seem as though the magazine is close and personal with her. The references are also in line with the overall attitude of a respective article, so they depend on whether a paragraph is written slightly mockingly—of Alice or of society—or if it’s supportive of her actions and praises her looks. In addition, the Saunterer takes up the nickname “Princess” that the public gave Alice Roosevelt and uses it in all kinds of variations. He especially elaborates the royalty metaphor in the coverage of Alice’s travels to Asia when he refers to the White House as the “White Palace” (see fig. 22), contrasts the Crown Princess of Japan and the “Crown Princes of America” (see fig. 30), writes about a royal reception (see fig. 33) and “the royalty rank of the daughter of a President” (see fig. 37) to caricature the great extent that Alice’s celebrity had assumed at this point.

Interestingly, The New York Times’ coverage of the trip to the Philippines and beyond is written in a different manner that emphasizes key differences in the two newspapers. For The New York Times, the main person of the trip is Secretary Taft, the official leader of the diplomatic mission and the one holding an official position, being the Secretary of War. This highlights the political interest of the newspaper with regards to content. The news headings of articles regarding the tour stops talk about “Taft and his party” (see fig. 24, 25), reinforcing his important role on the journey. Articles name Alice Roosevelt in the headlines only if she is specifically involved in an event (see fig. 31, 32). This only changes after the party splits up and Alice travels on to China with a few companions while Secretary Taft returns to the USA. From then on, Alice is the center of attention in the travel reports in The New York Times (see fig. 34-36). On the contrary, Alice is the main attraction in Town Topics from the very start of the journey, and the magazine reports almost exclusively about her actions and her special treatment. The Saunterer reports about “Princess Alice Roosevelt’s party”, wryly shifting the importance to her, and even makes a snarky remark about Taft presumptuously claiming that it would be his party (see fig. 29). In that context, the Saunterer also calls Alice “our ‘Princess Wilful’” (see fig. 26, 30), thereby positioning himself amongst his readership and at the same time expressing his cynical opinion about her past behavior, winkingly masked in a pet name.

On the whole, the Town Topics columns are rarely purely informative; they usually contain the judgement of the Saunterer toward the person and situation at hand, be it in a positive or in a negative light. For instance, his remarks about Alice at the christening ceremony are complaisant but his comments on the coronation affair and discussion about Alice’s rank include rebuke and advise for better behavior on her part (see fig. 5, 6, 8). The New York Times’ accounts in both these cases, and generally, are more objective and good-natured towards Alice (see fig. 3, 4, 7). This subjective style of writing in Town Topics results from the Saunterer having established himself as an authority of society’s moral standards. He “acted as a censor of the behavior of those who set the fashion for the rest of society” (Montgomery 5), namely society women in the public eye such as Alice Roosevelt. His aim was to give a social commentary, not neutral coverage of events. The Saunterer’s tone in doing so tends to be sarcastic and “much of what the Saunterer said was done with tongue in cheek” (Montgomery 150).

The Saunterer really got to work as the “censor of society” in regard to Alice Roosevelt when he published three scathingly condemning paragraphs about her—in his opinion—abominable moral behavior (see fig. 17-20). For writing such libelous passages in general, the Saunterer used a sly method of pairing paragraphs where “the first one, the ‘blind paragraph,’ would refer to the infelicities of a member of society and the paragraph immediately succeeding it, the ‘key,’ would contain the name of the person in question” (Montgomery 146). That way, he could avoid being sued for defamation as he didn’t openly name the person in the same breath but still gave away their identity. Nonetheless, these paragraphs about Alice did indirectly lead to a lawsuit, because the vicious implications about the President’s daughter drove the publisher of another paper to take on the editors of Town Topics in an editorial battle that resulted in a court case (Montgomery 145; for more information on the libel suits see also project Town Topics’ Downfall – Significant Libel Cases). By being subject to such an affront in the papers, Alice experienced another side of publicity: “All celebrities live in fear that their public approbation will fade, only to be supplanted with disapproval—harbinger of the ultimately fatal inattention. For Alice, this came in part in 1904” (Rozek 61) with the ruthless remarks in Town Topics. Although this situation must have had unfavorable consequences for Alice’s public image, this is not so much reflected in either Town Topics or The New York Times. The reports about Alice in Town Topics just continue in their usual fashion as if nothing bad was ever written about her, and there is also no specific mention of the incident in The New York Times. They report about the legal cases that follow for Town Topics’ editors but there is no connection drawn to the paragraphs written about Alice in Town Topics. Potentially, a bigger public uproar was prevented because at the time, nobody who deemed themselves respectable would have liked to publicly admit that they read a scandal sheet like Town Topics (Rozek 61). Alice herself doesn’t write anything about this specific occurrence, but as reports of her eccentricities increasingly appeared in the papers, her father wrote her a scorching letter with reproaches to her behavior (Roosevelt Longworth 60-61).

Apart from differences in style and content, the two newspapers also vary in their layout. After Alice Roosevelt becomes a public figure, the articles that concern her in The New York Times are printed amongst the more striking news located at the front of the paper. She isn’t just mentioned in the specified society columns on the rear pages but gets her own designated articles with headlines, often on the front page itself. This speaks for Alice’s prominent public value because “unusual or sensational items of news about particular families or individuals […] were often brought forward to the front page” (Montgomery 144) in order to set them apart from the regular social activities of high society and entice potential readers to buy the paper. Not only does The New York Times chronicle even the smallest of Alice’s movements (see fig. 9, 11), when it comes to the grand events, the articles are also very in-depth and elaborate at length on detailed descriptions of fashion, decoration and procedure, as well as giving background information and statements of the people involved (see fig. 1, 7, 43). The New York Times can dedicate this much publishing space to extensive reports because they are a daily newspaper and therefore have a full paper worth of space to report about the news of a single day. For the sake of this project, I had to cut down the related articles to the most relevant points to enable a direct comparison.

Town Topics, on the contrary, is issued in a weekly cycle and has thus the same space to cover the happenings of the entire past week. This can be seen in the lengths of the paragraphs written about Alice. They are shorter and less detailed overall but compared to the other accounts in Town Topics they usually occupy a larger space and often grace the front page here as well. Especially in the later stage of Alice’s celebrity when she has become a household name, there are multiple paragraphs written about her tidings such as the journey to Asia and her engagement along with the wedding (see fig. 26, 27, 41, 42, 45, 46). Moreover, during the years 1902-1906, Alice is featured in almost every issue of Town Topics in “Saunterings” and often additionally in one of the other columns hence further underlining her prominence in the public.

For Town Topics, Alice’s wedding to Nicholas Longworth marks the end of an era. While The New York Times continues to report about her in a similar fashion as in the years before—potentially slightly less prominent and adopting to her new role and standing as the wife of a congressman—Town Topics dramatically titles this stage in her life “the passing of the Princess” (see fig. 48, 49) and predicts a decline in her fame due to her altered standing in society. The magazine continues to report less frequently about her in the following year, heeding its own announcement and perhaps moving on to more promising gossip prospects since the pastimes of a wedded Alice Longworth weren’t of much interest to a journal that sought to cover the sensational, and the Saunterer’s beloved royalty metaphor had likewise become obsolete from then on.