1. NEWSPAPERS and the Rise of Modern Journalism
Chapter 8
NEWSPAPERS
and the Rise of Modern Journalism

2. Some guiding questions
How did newspapers emerge as a mass medium?
How have the standards of journalism changed in the modern era?
How do issues of ownership, economics and technology bear upon journalism?
What are central concerns about journalism and democracy?

3. What is NEWS?
News satisfies our need to know things we cannot experience personally
News documents daily life and bears witness to ordinary and extraordinary events
Does it just report FACTS, or does it help us to interpret them?
How does the news differ from print to broadcast to web based?

4. Early American newspapers
Colonial newspapers in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, South Carolina generally fell into two categories:
PARTISAN PRESS: political bias, argued for one perspective
COMMERCIAL PRESS: served interests of business and economic leaders
By 1765, about 30 newspapers, with the first daily paper in 1784

5. Readership was primarily limited to elite and educated men: WHY?
Low literacy rate among working and middle classes
Newspaper production and distribution was expensive
Newspaper subscription rates were high
Press did not address middle and upper class women’s interests or those of the working class

6. ERA OF THE PENNY PRESS (1820s)
Industrial Revolution: new technologies made MASS PUBLISHING cheaper and faster
New strategies by some publishers to attract working-class readers

7. PENNY PRESS STRATEGIES
Lowered cost to one penny per issue
Focus on local events, scandals and crime
By 1848, gained access to shared national coverage
Ran serialized stories
Human interest stories
Celebrity news
Fashion notes
Jokes

8. ERA of YELLOW JOURNALISM (1890s)
age of SENSATIONALISM (to attract readers/consumers)
age of INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING (to crusade for common people)

9. Two infamous publishers
JOSEPH PULITZER: Eastern European immigrant, built empire from St. Louis Post-Dispatch to New York World
appealed to working classes
promoted consumerism
crusaded against corruption

10. Two infamous publishers
WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST: son of U.S. senator, built empire from San Francisco Examiner to New York Journal:
appealed to immigrant and working class
sensational journalism (like tabloids today)
champion of the underdog
model for Citizen Kane (1941 film)

11. MODERN JOURNALISM IN AMERICA: COMPETING MODELS
STORY model: dramatized events, used individual characters and narrative structure
INFORMATION model: emphasized a purely factual, straightforward approach
Do these two models exist today?

12. OBJECTIVE JOURNALISM: Inverted Pyramid Style of Reporting
What? Efficient model for news reporting
How? Concentrated main details about news at top of story (WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, and HOW )
Why? Initially, to ensure that primary elements got through telegraph transmissions, but also to aid editors

13. INTERPRETIVE JOURNALISM
A style of reporting that tries to put issues and events in broader social and historical context
Explanatory, interpretive analysis of news
Why?
Objectivity has limits in an increasingly complex world and people want analysis
Radio (and later television and the web) could provide the instant coverage that newspapers could not, but they don’t generally have the space to do stories in depth

14. Attack on objectivity as dominant model (1960s) --> new journalistic forms
advocacy journalism
precision journalism
new journalism
(aka literary journalism)

15. ETHNIC, MINORITY, and OPPOSITIONAL NEWSPAPERS
Independent newspapers for immigrant, racial and ethnic groups
Hispanic press
Native American press
African-American press
The underground press

16. OWNERSHIP, ECONOMICS and TECHNOLOGY
What issues face the world of newspaper publishing today?

17. ISSUES TODAY
CIRCULATION CRISIS: decline in readership in spite of population growth
LOSS OF COMPETING NEWSPAPERS in major cities (mergers, JOAs)
NEWSPAPER CHAINS
NEW TECHNOLOGIES (on-line journalism)

18. PRINT vs. ELECTRONIC NEWS
What are the advantages and disadvantages of each mode?