1. History of Newspaper Journalism An Introduction

2. Cave drawings could be considered the first newspapers, but they never had much chance for mass circulation.

3. German blacksmith and inventor Johannes Gutenberg devised the first printing press around 1450. One of his first projects was publishing a Bible.

4. Weekly newspapers started appearing in most European countries in the 17 th Century, but operated under strict government control. By mid-century, a movement in England was arguing for press freedom.

5. The first English- language daily was the Courant, published on March 11, 1702. It consisted of just one page and lasted until 1735.

6. In 1690, book publisher Benjamin Harris distributed the first multi-page newspaper in the American colonies. Because it criticized the British government, it was closed after one issue.

7. Fourteen years later, the Boston News- Letter began publishing and became the first to survive in the colonies. Supported by the British and writing mostly about foreign issues, the paper survived until 1776.

8. Benjamin Franklin, 23, purchased the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729, turning it into the most popular paper in the colonies. He had previous worked for his brother’s paper in Boston.

9. In 1734, John Peter Zenger, publisher of the Weekly Journal of New York, was arrested and charged with seditious libel for printing critical statements about the British governor of the colonies. His lawyer argued that the court’s refusal to accept the truth as a defense proved that the system was unjust and Zenger was innocent. The jury agreed.

10. The Zenger case was the basis for the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which guarantees freedom of the press.

11. Two inventions during the 19 th century drastically changed newspaper journalism: photography in the 1830s and expand use of the telegraph in the 1850s.

12. Newspapers thrived during the 19 th century because of the interest in the divisive issue of slavery and the resulting Civil War. Because of telegraph communication and photographs, newspapers could report on the war in ways never seen before.

13. Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune in 1841 and it became the most influential paper of the era. As editor and publisher, Greeley shaped public opinion on many issues, was a leading anti-slavery spokesman and an advocate for the western expansion of the U.S.

14. In 1851, Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones founded the New-York Daily Times. Six years later it was renamed the New York Times. Adolph Ochs purchased the paper in 1896 (his heirs still run the paper) and it quickly became one of the leading papers in the country, a position it still holds.

15. At age 25, journalist Joseph Pulitzer bought the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1872 and a few years later the New York World. By writing extensively about corrupt government officials, his papers became the most popular in their cities.

16. In Pulitzer’s will he established a fund to offer yearly prizes to the best American journalists and newspapers. The awards, the most prestigious in journalism, have been given out by the Columbia University’s School of Journalism since 1917.

17. The primary rival of Pulitzer was William Randolph Hearst, one of the richest men in the country, who ran the New York Journal. Eventually, he owned about 25 papers across the country, forming the first newspaper chain. Based in San Francisco, he also built Hearst Castle along the California coast.

18. The circulation war between the two papers escalated when both started writing sensational, exaggerated stories about crime and politics to attract readers. It became known as “yellow journalism” (after a popular cartoon) and hit its peak when Hearst tried to gain popular support for U.S. involvement in a war with Cuba.

19. While the primary focus of journalism in the late 19 th Century was New York City, newspapers were flourishing everywhere. One of the first major newspapers in California was established in San Jose in 1851 (still publishing as the Mercury- News today). In 1881, the Los Angeles Daily Times was founded.

20. Gen. Harrison Gray Otis took over the L.A. paper a year later and soon renamed it the Los Angeles Times. It soon became the dominant paper of Southern California, expanding under his son-in-law Harry Chandler.

21. Two late 19 th Century inventions changed the way newsrooms operated: the telephone and the typewriter became the most important tools of the modern journalist.

22. Newspapers faced their first major challenges in the 1920s with the widespread popularity of radio and movie newsreels. Newspapers faced their first major challenges in the 1920s with the widespread popularity of radio and movie newsreels.

23. During the 1930s and ‘40s, newspapers and reporters were often the subject of movies. “Citizen Kane,” considered by most film historians as the greatest American movie, was about a egotistical newspaper publisher. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p WamUmlKY0A&feature=related

24. Radio and newspapers shared the spotlight during the coverage of World War II, but soon after the war television began pushing aside the “old media.”

25. One of the early stars of television news was Edward R. Murrow, a radio reporter during WWII, who turned CBS into the TV’s most respected news departments. Following in his footsteps at CBS was longtime news anchor Walter Cronkite and the network’s “60 Minutes.”

26. By 1963, the number of U.S. cities that had two or more daily newspapers was 55 compared to almost 700 in 1909. In the 1960s, large companies created newspaper chains by buying up dozens of papers across the country.

27. Otis Chandler took over as publisher of the Los Angeles Times in 1960 and quickly turned a mediocre paper into one of the top newspapers in the country. Chandler hired the best journalists and eliminated the paper’s rightwing bias. The Chandler family sold the paper to the Tribune Company in 2000.

28. Newspaper journalism received a boost in popularity and prestige in the wake of the Washington Post’s investigation of the Watergate burglary. Stories by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led to the resignation of President Nixon. Journalism schools saw a huge increase in enrollment.

29. Circulation of U.S. newspapers declines from 62.3 million in 1990 to 55.8 in 2000. While newspapers emphasized features and analysis stories in the 1980s and ‘90s to attract new and younger readers, the expansion of cable TV took ad revenue and readers away.

30. Newspapers realized too late that allowing Internet sites to reuse its stories would damage both revenues and readership. With a new generation expecting to get news for free and instantaneously on the Internet, newspapers began a slow decline at the turn of the century. Newspapers realized too late that allowing Internet sites to reuse its stories would damage both revenues and readership. With a new generation expecting to get news for free and instantaneously on the Internet, newspapers began a slow decline at the turn of the century.

31. While newspapers have eliminated over 100,000 jobs since 2007, opportunities for writers and reporters continue to grow as the desire for information and commentary has never been stronger. But it becomes less and less clear as to who is a journalist and who is just someone with a web site.

32. Cartoon by Ted Rall

33. Sources used for this power point presentation. Ushistory.com Answers.com Pulitzer.com Poynter.com Pbs.org Latimes.com Journalism.org Encyclopedia.com Google.com History.journalism.ku.edu Ablongman.com