Imagine you are a news editor. You have been asked to respond to an online discussion thread regarding how information media has affected American culture.Answer each of the following questions in 100 to 150 words:Does the information media have social responsibility? If yes, in what ways? If not, why not?What is the role of the information and news media in the shaping of political opinions?How have electronic media and their convergence transformed journalism and news consumptionHow are standards in journalism still relevant and important in today’s media, opinion, and media-saturated worldWhat role does satire have in the news today? How have programs and websites such as The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Onion provided a separate space for commentary on the news and news providers?Illustrate your responses with specific examples.Submit your assignment.Refer to the following required learning activities:Week 4 Electronic Reserve ReadingsTEDTalks: Markham NolanTEDTalks: The Secret U.S. Prisons You’ve Never Heard of Before
YOUR FRIENDS KNOW YOU HAVE A GOOD HEAD FOR MONEY, SO YOURE THE
GO-TO PERSON FOR ALL THEIR FINANCIAL QUESTIONS. But this one was a bit out
of the ordinary. Chris wanted investment advice on the best place to put a fairly sizeable
inheritance from a hardly known uncle. Your replyNewspapers!caused something of a
stir, not only with Chris, but with just about everyone else who heard about it. Tired of
telling the same story over and over again, you posted your argument on your Facebook
page for the world to see.
OK, everybody, newspapers? Its not as crazy as Chris makes it sound. Yes, the economics of the
newspaper industry are in bad shape. But as an investment, newspapers are a good deal. They make
money! You might ask why Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post or sports billionaire
John Henry purchased the Boston Globe? Good question, but a better one is why does Warren Buffett
own 70 papers? Maybe its because publicly traded newspaper company stocks showed gains of 60% and
more from 2012 to 2013 (Edmonds, 2014). Maybe its because, as the legendary billionaire investor
himself said, In Grand Island, Nebraska, everyone is interested in how the football team does. Theyre
interested in who got married. Theyre maybe even more interested in who got divorced (in Blagg,
2014). Buffett knows newspapers are an indispensable local medium; being so indispensable, his papers
earn a 10% after-tax profit (better than most businesses). This not only makes him and his investors
money, but now banks are also starting to look at papers again as a place to put their money. That means
more investment, which means a better product, which means more profit (Das, 2014). So
yes, newspapers! Like all traditional media they are undergoing disruptive transition, but they still make
money!
In this chapter we examine that disruptive transitionradical change in an industry
brought about by the introduction of a new technology or productand what it means for
the relationship between the newspaper and its readers. We start with a look at the
mediums roots, beginning with the first papers, following them from Europe to colonial
America, where many of the traditions of todays free press were set. We study the cultural
changes that led to the creation of the penny press and to competition between these mass
circulation dailies that gave us yellow journalism.
We then review the modern newspaper in terms of its size and scope. We discuss
different types of newspapers and the importance of newspapers as an advertising
medium. The wire and feature services, important providers of newspaper content, are
also highlighted.
We then detail how the relationship between medium and audience is shifting as a
result of the loss of competition within the industry, hypercommercialism in the guise of
commercial pressure on papers editorial content, the positive and negative impacts of
new and converging technology, the rise of online newspapers, and changes in the nature
of newspaper readership. Finally, we test our media literacy skill through a discussion of
how to read the newspaperfor example, interpreting the relative positioning of stories.
The opening vignette makes an important point about contemporary newspapersthey
are in a state of disruption, but they are working hard and often successfully to secure new
identities for themselves in an increasingly crowded media environment. As a medium
and as an industry, newspapers are in the midst of a significant change in their role and
operation. The changing relationship between newspapers and readers is part of this
upheaval. And while its not uncommon to read or hear comments such as this one from
about 10 years ago from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, There will be no media
consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over IP [Internet Protocol] network.
There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything
gets delivered in an electronic form (in Dumenco, 2008, p. 48), newspapers in paper
form are still around. They have faced similar challenges more than once in the past and
have survived.
The Earliest Newspapers
Page 73 In Caesars time, Rome had a newspaper. The Acta Diurna (actions of the day),
carved on a tablet, was posted on a wall after each meeting of the Senate. Its circulation
was one, and there is no reliable measure of its total readership. However, it does show
that people have always wanted to know what was happening and that others have helped
them do so.
The newspapers we recognize today have their roots in 17th-century
Europe. Corantos, one-page news sheets about specific events, were printed in English in
Holland in 1620 and imported to England by British booksellers who were eager to satisfy
public demand for information about Continental happenings that eventually led to what
we now call the Thirty Years War.
Englishmen Nathaniel Butter, Thomas Archer, and Nicholas Bourne eventually began
printing their own occasional news sheets, using the same title for consecutive editions.
They stopped publishing in 1641, the same year that regular, daily accounts of local news
started appearing in other news sheets. These true forerunners of our daily newspaper
were called diurnals, but by the 1660s the word newspaper had entered the English
language (Lepore, 2009).
Political power struggles in England at this time boosted the fledgling medium, as
partisans on the side of the monarchy and those on the side of Parliament published
papers to bolster their positions. When the monarchy prevailed, it granted monopoly
publication rights to the Oxford Gazette, the official voice of the Crown. Founded in 1665
and later renamed the London Gazette, this journal used a formula of foreign news, official
information, royal proclamations, and local news that became the model for the first
colonial newspapers.
COLONIAL NEWSPAPERS In the colonies, bookseller/print shops became the focal
point for the exchange of news and information, which led to the beginning of the colonial
newspaper. It was at these establishments that broadsides (sometimes referred to
as broadsheets), single-sheet announcements or accounts of events imported from
England, would be posted. In 1690 Boston bookseller/printer (and coffeehouse owner)
Benjamin Harris printed his own broadside, Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and
Domestick. Intended for continuous publication, the countrys first paper lasted only one
day; Harris had been critical of local and European dignitaries, and he had also failed to
obtain a license.
More successful was Boston postmaster John Campbell, whose 1704 Boston NewsLetter survived until the Revolution. The paper featured foreign news, reprints of articles
from England, government announcements, and shipping news. It was dull, and it was
also expensive. Nonetheless, it established the newspaper in the Colonies.
The Boston News-Letter was able to survive in part because of government subsidies.
With government support came government control, but the buildup to the Revolution
helped establish the mediums independence. In 1721 Boston had three papers. James
Franklins New-England Courant was the only one publishing without authority.
The Courant was popular and controversial, but when it criticized the Massachusetts
governor, Franklin was jailed for printing scandalous libels. When released, he returned
to his old ways, earning himself and the Courant a publishing ban, which he circumvented
by installing his younger brother Benjamin as nominal publisher. Ben Franklin soon
moved to Philadelphia, and without his leadership the Courant was out of business in
three years. Its lasting legacy, however, was in proving that a newspaper with popular
support could indeed challenge authority.
In Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin established a print shop and later, in 1729, took
over a failing newspaper, which he revived and renamed the Pennsylvania Gazette. By
combining the income from his bookshop and printing businesses with that from his
popular daily, Franklin could run the Gazette with significant independence. Even though
he held the contract for Philadelphias official printing, he was unafraid to criticize those
in authority. In addition, he began to develop advertising support, which also helped
shield his newspaper from government control by decreasing its dependence on official
printing contracts for survival. Ben Franklin demonstrated that financial independence
could lead to editorial independence. It was not, however, a guarantee.
In 1734 New York Weekly Journal publisher John Peter Zenger was jailed for criticizing
that colonys royal governor. The charge was seditious libel, and the verdict was based not
on the truth or falsehood of the printed words but on whether they had been printed. The
criticisms had been published, so Zenger was clearly guilty. But his attorney, Andrew
Hamilton, argued to the jury, For the words themselves must be libelous, that is, false,
scandalous and seditious, or else we are not guilty. Zengers peers agreed, and he was
freed. The case of Peter Zenger became a symbol of colonial newspaper independence
from the Crown, and its power was evident in the refusal by publishers to accept the
Stamp Act in 1765.
NEWSPAPERS AFTER INDEPENDENCE After the Revolution, the new government of
the United States had to determine for itself just how free a press it was willing to tolerate.
When the first Congress convened under the new Constitution in 1790, the nations
founders debated, drafted, and adopted the first 10 amendments to the Constitution,
called the Bill of Rights. The First Amendment reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peacefully to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
But a mere eight years later, fearful of the subversive activities of foreigners
sympathetic to France, Congress passed a group of four laws known collectively as
the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Sedition Act made illegal writing, publishing, or printing
any false scandalous and malicious writing about the president, Congress, or the federal
government. So unpopular were these laws with a people who had just waged a war of
independence against similar limits on their freedom of expression that they were not
renewed when Congress reconsidered them two years later in 1800. See the chapter on
media freedom, regulation, and ethics for more detail on the ongoing commitment to the
First Amendment, freedom of the press, and open expression in the United States.
At the turn of the 19th century, New York City provided all the ingredients necessary for
a new kind of audience for a new kind of newspaper and a new kind of journalism. The
island city was densely populated, a center of culture, commerce, and politics, and
especially because of the wave of immigrants that had come to its shores, demographically
diverse. Add to this growing literacy among working people, and conditions were ripe for
the penny press, one-cent newspapers for everyone. Benjamin Days September 3, 1833,
issue of the New York Sun was the first of the penny papers. Days innovation was to sell
his paper so inexpensively that it would attract a large readership, which could then be
sold to advertisers. Day succeeded because he anticipated a new kind of reader. He filled
the Suns pages with police and court reports, crime stories, entertainment news, and
human interest stories. Because the paper lived up to its motto, The Sun shines for all,
there was little of the elite political and business information that had characterized
earlier papers.
Page 75 Soon there were penny papers in all the major cities. Among the most important
was James Gordon Bennetts New York Morning Herald. Although more sensationalistic
than the Sun, the Herald pioneered the correspondent system, placing reporters in
Washington, D.C., and other major U.S. cities as well as abroad. Correspondents filed
their stories by means of the telegraph, invented in 1844. Horace Greeleys New York
Tribune was an important penny paper as well. Its nonsensationalistic, issues-oriented,
and humanitarian reporting established the mass newspaper as a powerful medium of
social action.
THE PEOPLES MEDIUM People typically excluded from the social, cultural, and
political mainstream quickly saw the value of the mass newspaper. The first African
American newspaper was Freedoms Journal, published initially in 1827 by John B.
Russwurm and the Reverend Samuel Cornish. Forty others soon followed, but it was
Frederick Douglass who made best use of the new mass circulation style in his
newspaper The Rams Horn, founded expressly to challenge the editorial policies of
Benjamin Days Sun. Although this particular effort failed, Douglass had established
himself and the minority press as a viable voice for those otherwise silenced.
Douglasss North Star, founded in 1847 with the masthead slogan Right is of no Sex
Truth is of no ColorGod is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren, was the most
influential African American newspaper before the Civil War.
The most influential African American newspaper after the Civil War, and the first
Black paper to be a commercial success (its predecessors typically were subsidized by
political and church groups), was the Chicago Defender. First published on May 5, 1905,
by Robert Sengstacke Abbott, the Defender eventually earned a nationwide circulation of
more than 230,000. Especially after Abbott declared May 15, 1917, the date of the Great
Northern Drive, the Defenders central editorial goal was to encourage southern Black
people to move north.
I beg of you, my brothers, to leave that benighted land. You are free men. . . . Get out
of the South, Abbott editorialized (as quoted in Fitzgerald, 1999, p. 18). The paper would
regularly contrast horrific accounts of southern lynchings with northern African
American success stories. Within two years of the start of the Great Drive, more than
500,000 former slaves and their families moved north. Within two more years, another
500,000 followed.
Native Americans found early voice in papers such as the Cherokee Phoenix, founded in
1828 in Georgia, and the Cherokee Rose Bud, which began operation 20 years later in
Oklahoma. The rich tradition of the Native American newspaper is maintained today
around the country in publications such as the Oglala Sioux Lakota Times and the
ShoshoneBannock Sho-Ban News, as well as on the World Wide Web. For example,
the Cherokee
Observer is
at www.cherokeeobserver.org;
the Navajo
Times is
at navajotimes.com;
and News
from
Indian
Country can
be
found
at www.indiancountrynews.com.
Throughout this early period of the popularization of the newspaper, numerous
foreign-language dailies also began operation, primarily in major cities in which
immigrants tended to settle. Sloan, Stovall, and Startt (1993) report that in 1880 there
were more than 800 foreign-language newspapers published in German, Polish, Italian,
Spanish, and various Scandinavian languages. As youll see later in this chapter, the
modern foreign language press is enjoying significant success in todays era of flat or
falling readership for more mainstream papers.
THE FIRST WIRE SERVICES In 1848, six large New York papers, including
the Sun, the Herald, and the Tribune, decided to pool efforts and share expenses collecting
news from foreign ships docking at the citys harbor. After determining rules of
membership and other organizational issues, in 1856 the papers established the first
news-gathering (and distribution) organization, the New York Associated Press. Other
domestic wire services, originally named for their reliance on the telegraph, followedthe
Associated Press in 1900, the United Press in 1907, and the International News Service in
1909.
This innovation, with its assignment of correspondents to both foreign and domestic
bureaus, had a number of important implications. First, it greatly expanded the breadth
and scope of coverage a newspaper could offer its readers. This was a boon to dailies
wanting to attract as many readers as possible. Greater coverage of distant domestic news
helped unite an expanding country while encouraging even more expansion. The United
States was a nation of immigrants, and news from peoples homelands drew more readers.
Second, the nature of reporting began to change. Reporters could now produce stories
by Page 76 rewritingsometimes a little, sometimes a lotthe actual on-the-spot coverage
of others. Finally, newspapers were able to reduce expenses (and increase profits) because
they no longer needed to have their own reporters in all locations.
YELLOW JOURNALISM In 1883 Hungarian immigrant Joseph Pulitzer bought the
troubled New York World. Adopting a populist approach to the news, he brought a
crusading, activist style of coverage to numerous turn-of-the-century social problems
growing slums, labor tensions, and failing farms, to name a few. The audience for his new
journalism was the common man, and he succeeded in reaching readers with light,
sensationalistic news coverage, extensive use of illustrations, and circulation-building
stunts and promotions (for example, an around-the-world balloon flight). Ad revenues
and circulation figures exploded.
Soon there were other new journalists. William Randolph Hearst applied Pulitzers
successful formula to his San Francisco Examiner, and then in 1895 he took on Pulitzer
himself in New York by purchasing the failing New York Morning Journal. The competition
between Hearsts Morning Journal and Pulitzers World was so intense that it debased
newspapers and journalism as a whole, which is somewhat ironic in that Pulitzer later
founded the prize for excellence in journalism that still bears his name.
Drawing its name from the Yellow Kid, a popular cartoon character of the time, yellow
journalism was a study in excesssensational sex, crime, and disaster news; giant
headlines; heavy use of illustrations; and reliance on cartoons and color. It was successful
at first, and other papers around the country adopted all or part of its style. Although
public reaction to the excesses of yellow journalism soon led to its decline, traces of its
popular features remain. Large headlines, big front-page pictures, extensive use of photos
and illustrations, and cartoons are characteristic even of todays best newspapers.
The years between the era of yellow journalism and the coming of television were a time
of remarkable growth in the development of newspapers. From 1910 to the beginning of
World War II, daily newspaper subscriptions doubled and ad revenues tripled. In 1910
there were 2,600 daily papers in the United States, more than at any time before or since.
In 1923, the American Society of Newspaper Editors issued the Canons of Journalism
and Statement of Principles in an effort to restore order and respectability after the
yellow era. The opening sentence of the Canons was, The right of a newspaper to attract
and hold readers is restricted by nothing but considerations of public welfare. The wire
services internationalized. United Press International started gathering news from Japan
in 1909 and was covering South America and Europe by 1921. In response to the
competition from radio and magazines for advertising dollars, newspapers began
consolidating into newspaper chainspapers in different cities across the country owned
by a single company. Hearst and Scripps were among the most powerful chains in the
1920s. For all practical purposes, the modern newspaper had now emerged. The next
phase of the mediums life, as well soon see, begins with the coming of television. More
than 40 million newspapers are sold daily in the United States, and 70% of Americans
164 million peoplereport reading a paper or its website at least once a week, 144 million
of those folks doing so on a paper newspaper (Newspaper Association of America, 2013).
The industry that serves those readers looks quite different from the one that operated
before television became a dominant medium. There are now fewer papers. There are now
different types of papers. They deliver the news on different platforms, and more
newspapers are part of large chains.
The advent of television at the end of World War II coincided with several important
social and cultural changes in the United States. Shorter work hours, more leisure, more
expendable cash, movement to the suburbs, and women joining the workforce in greater
numbers all served to alter the newspaperreader relationship. When the war ended,
circulation equaled 1.24 papers per American household per day; today that figure is 0.37
per household per day (Gitlin, 2013).
Today, Americans may well buy 40 million papers every day, but in 1970, they bought
62.1 million. The number of daily newspapers also continues to fall. There were more than
1,600 in 1990; the current total is around 1,400. In 2008, the Baltimore Examiner, New York
Sun, Albuquerque Tribune, Cincinnati Post, Kentucky Post, and Birmingham Post-Herald closed
shop. In 2009 Denvers 150-year-old Rocky Mountain News folded and the 146-yearold Seattle Post-Intelligencer converted to Web-only. The 101-year-old Christian Science
Monitor also shut down its print operation to become an online daily and a weekend
newsmagazine. In 2010 the Honolulu Advertiser stopped its presses, and in 2013
Britains Lloyds List, founded in 1734 and the worlds oldest newspaper, ceased print
production. Circulation has suffered 10 consecutive years of decline, and ad revenues are
falling at a double-digit pace. Todays newspapers are buffeted by technological and
economic change like no other traditional medium.
Today there are more than 9,000 newspapers operating in the United States. Of these, 15% are
dailies and the rest are weeklies (77%) and semiweeklies (8%). They have a combined circulation
of nearly 130 million. Pass-along readershipreaders who did not originally purchase the paper
brings 104 million people a day in touch with a daily and 200 million a week in touch with a
weekly. But as weve seen, overall print circulation is falling despite a growing population.
Therefore, to have success and to ensure their future, newspapers have had to adjust.
Weve cited statistics about dailies and weeklies, but these categories actually include
many different types of papers. Lets take a closer look at some of them.
NATIONAL DAILY NEWSPAPERS We typically think of the newspaper as a local
medium, our towns paper. But two national daily newspapers enjoy large circulations
and significant social and political impact. The older and more respected is the Wall Street
Journal, founded in 1889 by Charles Dow and Edward Jones. Today, as then, its focus is
on the world of business, although its definition of business is broad. The Journal has a
circulation of 1.4 million (2.3 million including digital subscribers), and an average
household income of its readers of $150,000 makes it a favorite for upscale advertisers.
In 2007 it became part of Rupert Murdochs News Corp. media empire.
The other national daily is USA Today. Founded in 1982, it calls itself The Nations
Newspaper, and despite early derision from industry pros for its lack of depth and
apparent dependence on style over substance, it has become a serious national newspaper
with significant global influence. Today, the papers daily circulation of 1.6 million (4.2
million including special branded editions and digital subscriptions) suggests that readers
welcome Page 79 its mix of short, lively, upbeat stories; full-color graphics; state-by-state
news and sports briefs; and liberal use of easy-to-read illustrated graphs and tables.
LARGE METROPOLITAN DAILIES To be a daily, a paper must be published at least
five times a week. The circulation of big-city dailies has dropped over the past 30 years,
and they continue to lose circulation at a rate approaching 10% a year (Rosenstiel &
Mitchell, 2011). Many old, established papers, including the Philadelphia Bulletin and
the Washington Star, have stilled their presses in recent years. When the Chicago Daily
News closed its doors, it had the sixth-highest circulation in the country.
As big cities cease to be industrial centers, homes, jobs, and interests have turned away
from downtown. Those large metropolitan dailies that are succeeding have used a number
of strategies to cut costs and to attract and keep more suburban-oriented readers. Some
publish zoned editionssuburban or regional versions of the paperto attract readers and
to combat competition for advertising dollars from the suburban papers. But oncecustomary features like these zoned editions (Providence Journal), stand-alone book
review sections (Chicago Tribune, Washington Post), weekly magazines (Los Angeles
Times), classified sections (Cincinnati Enquirer, Boston Globe), even daily home
delivery (Cleveland Plain Dealer) are disappearing as papers big and small battle declining
ad revenue and rising production and distribution costs.
The New York Times is a special large metropolitan daily. It is a paper local to New York,
but the high quality of its reporting and commentary, the reach and depth of both its
national and international news, and the solid reputations of its features (such as the
weekly Times Magazine and the Book Review) make it the nations newspaper of record. Its
print circulation hovers between 600,000 and 700,000 a day, and its digital subscribers
bring that number to more than 2 million daily readers.
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