History of American Journalism American journalism had its humble beginnings in the Colonial period. Benjamin Harris published Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick, which was shut down after its one and only issue on Sept. 26, 1690.

The first continuously published American newspaper did not come along for 14 more years. The Boston News-Letter premiered on April 24, Publisher was John Campbell. The paper originally appeared on a single page, printed on both sides and issued weekly.

One of the most sensational stories published when the News- Letter was the only newspaper in the colonies was the the account of how Blackbeard the pirate was killed in hand- to-hand combat on the deck of a sloop that had engaged his ship in battle.

Perhaps the most famous name in early American journalism is that of Peter Zenger. Publisher of the New York Weekly Journal, Zenger was accused and tried for libel against the colonial British government in In this picture, Zenger is arrested and his printing press is burned by Colonial authorities.

Zenger was found innocent and it was that one verdict that paved the way for a free and independent press in America. The Zenger case established that truth is a defense against a libel charge. For the first time it was considered proper for the press to question and criticize the government. This is a pillar of a free press in the United States and any country that is free. Journalists have to be able to question the actions of the government in order to make them accountable.

The Birth of a Nation By 1775, when the American Revolution began, 37 newspapers were being published.

Partisan Press Readers who supported the fight for independence bought a Whig newspaper. Those loyal to the British Crown bought a Tory paper.

Free Press When the war ended and the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, the framers did not spend much time on the question of freedom of the press. The Constitution made no mention of a free press because most state constitutions had already covered the matter.

Bill of Rights The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, guarantees a free press. Even though the Bill of Rights guarantees Freedom of the Press, the right has always been under attack by the government and other forces.

Two firsts… The first daily newspaper: the Pennsylvania Post, founded in 1784 The first student newspaper: the Students Gazette, founded in 1777 at the Friends Latin School in Pennsylvania. It was handwritten by Quaker students.

Worth quoting… “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.” Thomas Jefferson ( ) U.S. President

All that is needed for newspapers to become a mass medium is a good idea and a cheaper way to mass produce papers. Along comes Benjamin Day in Day opened the New York Sun and created the Penny Press.

Horace Greeley In 1841, Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune. It had more substance than the Sun and was one of the most influential penny presses. The “scoop” (beating the competition) developed.

Early women journalists Cornelia Walter: editor of the Boston Transcript in the 1840s Jane Grey Swisshelm, worked for Greeley’s Tribune, became the first woman to cover Congress

The Civil War era brought some “new” technology to the publishing industry. Photography became a popular addition to newspapers. Matthew Brady set up a camera on the battlefields and photographed the soldiers at war. One of his photographs appears above.

An invention that helped speed news along was the telegraph. Reporters were able to send encoded news back to their papers as it was happening.

Increasing Speed Other methods and inventions that increased the speed of transmitting news include correspon- dents, the steamship, carrier pigeons, the Pony Express, the railroad.

More, Better, Faster Cooperative newsgathering companies, like the Associated Press sped up the process. A transatlantic cable was laid, linking America to Europe. Monthly magazines were founded. New type designs, color printing, and engraving made it possible to use photographs.

As newspapers began to compete more and more with one another to increase circulation and obtain more advertising revenue, a different type of journalism was developed by publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.

After Pulitzer began publishing color comic sections that included a strip entitled "The Yellow Kid" (left) in early 1896, this type of paper was labeled "yellow journalism."

Yellow Kid cartoonist Richard Outcault

One of the most popular reporters of the Yellow Journalism era was a woman named Elizabeth Cochrane who wrote under the name “Nellie Bly.” She wrote with anger and compassion. She wrote to expose the many wrongs that developed in nineteenth century cities after the industrial boom. Most of her reporting was on women.

After William Randolph Hearst moved to New York, he and Joseph Pulitzer competed for readers by making their papers more and more sensational.

Yellow journalism reached its peak during the late 1800s. The headline on this paper exploited the sinking of the battleship USS Maine and whipped up public sentiment to go to war.

This cartoon made fun of the way Hearst and Pulitzer were each claiming to “own” the story about the Spanish-American War.

Lasting Legacy - Muckraking Muckraking: journalism that crusades for social justice or to expose wrongdoing. One of the biggest accomplishments of the muckraking movement was the investigation and legislation that created the Food and Drug Act of 1906

Minority Media The first Spanish-language newspaper published in the United States was El Misisipí, founded in New Orleans in 1808 to advocate the independence of the Spanish colonies in the New World. Likewise, the first newspaper to be issued in what is now the U.S. Southwest was La Gaceta de Texas (1813), which supported the independence of northern New Spain

Minority Media Chicago Defender Robert S. Abbott 1905 One of the outstanding achievements of the Cherokee Nation was publication of the first American Indian newspaper. The Cherokee Phoenix, which is still published today, acted as the official voice of the government for the seven years that it was published from an office in the capital city of New Echota.

High Times to Low Times There were more newspapers on the market in 1910 than any other time in history. The numbers decreased afterward, due to competition, mergers, the cost of operation, and the electronic media.

A Picture Says … Photojournalism developed along with newspaper technology. The large-format Life magazine, Time, and Look magazines were known for their visual images. They set the standard for photography and photojournalism. Most of the photography magazines eventually folded because they couldn’t compete with the images on television.

As the U.S. population in the latter half of the 20th century shifted from cities to suburbs, and with the growth in competition from other media, many large city newspapers had to cease publication, merge with their competitors, or be taken over by a chain of newspaper publishers.

In 1982, using satellite transmission and color presses, the Gannett chain established a new national newspaper, USA Today, published and circulated throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Gannett was the largest newspaper chain in 1985, owning 88 dailies.

The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and USA Today are read all over the country; small towns and rural districts usually have daily or weekly local papers made up largely of syndicated matter, with a page or two of local news and editorials. These local papers are frequently influential political organs.

Computer-assisted reporting The use of various news databases and other resources on the Internet facilitate the gathering of certain kinds of news information.

By the 1990s the first independent online daily appeared on the Internet. By the decade's end some 700 papers had Web sites, some of which carried news gathered by their own staffs, and papers regularly scooped themselves by publishing electronically before the print edition appeared.

Global village the concept, so named by Marshall McLuhan, of the world as having become a more rightly interrelated community because of simultaneous broadcast of significant events

Shock Jocks/Radio Talk Shows Shock jock – a radio disk jockey who entertains his or her audience by saying outrageous, often vulgar or offensive, things about people or situations. Howard Stern Shock jock Rush Limbaugh Radio Talk Show Host