U.S. media historians have written extensively about the transition from the partisan journalism of the nineteenth century to the nonpartisan, professionalized news system that has dominated the past century. What has gotten less attention, however, is the difficulty professional journalists have had in reconciling their allegiance to impartial journalism with their occasional desire to engage more deeply in the politics of their communities. I use the story of two South Carolina journalists who helped build the conservative Republican Party in the Deep South as a case study to highlight this tension. You can find the article here in the Spring 2013 edition of Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly.