IN THE PAST THE NEWSPAPERS SUPPORTED FLAT EARTH

 

"Before the powerful people banned them, the newspapers did accept that the earth is flat."

 

This is what the flat earthers want us to believe and to support this claim they rely on a map of the flat earth that New York Journal published in 1897, and which the flat earthers often bring up and also use to make memes that according to them support their assertion:

 

 

 

 

They have also posted videos:

 

 

 

 

But if you read what that newspaper says, you will realize that the matter is very different, and to prove it, I invite you to see page 22 of the publication of Sunday, January 31, 1897, which you can download in this (link).

 

There you will see that on this page there are several articles, and at the top in the right column there is an article that deals with flat earthers, and which I will transcribe you below:

 

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THE EARTH FLAT

 

Enthusiasts Who Will Attempt: to Prove This Very Curious Theory

 

Experiments are soon to be made on the coast of Florida for the purpose of demonstrating that the earth is not round, but flat. Strange as it may seem, there are still a great many people on this terrestrial ball who deny that it is a ball of any sort. The celebrated Professor William Carpenter, who died in Baltimore, last September, was by no means the last of his faith.

 

In a picture of the earth as these unique theorists believe it to be — or some of them, for they do not all agree the "South Pole" is seen as a wall of ice surrounding the circular earth. This conception certainly fits well with the idea of the vastness of the Southern, wastes of ice which have turned back all explorers.

 

The hardy searchers for glory have come much nearer to the North Pole, and have made the region around It seem small and, familiar compared to that at the South, which is the true "terra incognita." In the flat earth picture, the North Polar Region is seen to be a small region of eternal cold in the centre of the circular world.

 

Alexander Gleason, the sage of Niagara Street, Buffalo, gave long and hard study to this great problem of the earth's surface, and spent much money in publishing books and collecting information. At one time he advertised in a New York paper for sea captains who had made the trip from the West African coast around Cape Horn, his desire being to prove that the distance was much greater than it would be if the earth were a sphere. The information which he obtained seemed to be satisfactory to himself, thought it did not convince many scientists and geographers.

 

The principal arguments advanced by the Flat earth theorists are that a ship might seem to sail around a ball when it merely sailed around a circle; that all the effects of day and night could be produced by a fixed sun shining down upon a circular earth revolving like a card on a pin, and that the longest rivers have a descent of only a few feet.

 

They say that the phenomenon at sea of the ship "rising" or disappearing is to be explained by refraction, and that if the earth were spherical the compass would not point north and south.

 

These theorists assert that Sir Isaac Newton was crazy, and Galileo and Columbus mistaken; that if the earth were a revolving globe, a projectile thrown vertically upward would not fall on the spot from which it was hurled.

 

And all of these propositions are hacked up by copious quotations from the Bible such as the four angles, at the four corners of the earth, the four winds of heaven, the angels that ascended and descended, etc. The underside of the earth having no sun is, say by these dreamers, the place of darkness and damnation, and that it is reached only though the bottomless pit. »

 

 

 

This article was later published by other newspapers: The San Francisco Examiner, The Osage County Chronicle, Vermont Journal, London Daily Mail, etc.

 

 

 

 

 

CONCLUSION

 

As you yourself can see, the article is not in favor of flat earthers, but on the contrary, since it considers flat earthers as religious fanatics who know nothing about science but instead have a very overflowing imagination. And this shows you how extent flat earthers manipulate information to pretend that the documentation is in their favor, when in reality it is the opposite.