american jsm

7/30/2019 American Jsm

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History of American Journalism

Newspapers have not alwaysbeen the sophisticated, full-color extravaganzas we knowtoday. American journalism

had its humble beginnings inthe Colonial period with thepublication of BenjaminHarrisPublick Occur rencesBoth Forreign and Domestick,which was shut down after itsone and only issue on Sept. 26,1690.


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This newspaper wasprinted on threesheets of stationery-size paper and the

fourth page was leftblank so that readerscould add their ownnews before passing

it on to someone else.


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Unfortunately, theessays which thispaper contained didnot please the

authorities, andHarris had notbought the requiredlicense, so the paper

was shut down afterjust one issue.


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The first continuouslypublished Americannewspaper did not comealong for 14 more years.The Boston News-Letterpremiered on April 24,1704. The publisher wasJohn Campbell. Thepaper originally appearedon a single page, printedon both sides and issuedweekly.


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In the early years of itspublication the News-

Letter was filled mostlywith news from Londonjournals detailing theintrigues of Englishpolitics, and a variety ofevents concerning theEuropean wars. The restof the newspaper wasfilled with items listingship arrivals, deaths,sermons, politicalappointments, fires,accidents and the like.
http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/newspaper/lottery.html


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One of the mostsensational storiespublished when the News-Letter was the only

newspaper in the colonieswas the the account ofhow Blackbeard thepirate was killed in hand-

to-hand combat on thedeck of a sloop that hadengaged his ship in battle.


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On view here is the May 14,

1761 issue of the News-Letter. The front page isdisplayed in its entirety. Aswas the custom then, the

front page was devoted toevents overseas. This issuecontains news from London,a speech by the King to theHouse of Commons, andvarious accounts fromWestminster and Whitehall


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Also displayed from this issue is

an ad from the back page for aScheme of a Lottery. The lottery

was created to sell 6000 tickets at

$2 each to raise funds to pave the

highway in Charlestown from theFerry to the Neck. Of the $12,000

to be raised, according to the ad,

$10,800 is earmarked for prizes

and $1200 for paving thehighway.


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Perhaps the most famous

name in early Americanjournalism is that of PeterZenger. Publisher of the NewYork Weekly Journal, Zenger

was accused and tried forlibel against the colonialBritish government in 1735.In this picture, Zenger is

arrested and his printingpress is burned by Colonialauthorities.


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Zenger was found innocent and it was that one verdict that paved

the way for a free and independent press in America. For the firsttime 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.


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All that is needed for newspapers to become

a mass medium is a good idea. Along comesBenjamin Day in 1833. Day opened the New

York Sun and created the Penny Press.


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Newspapers of the day cost about 10 cents each . . .

too expensive for the masses. But there was a large

literate audience out there. Day took advantage of

the fact that he could print thousands of papers

inexpensively and sold the papers for a penny

each.


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He also changed the content of newspapers to make itmore sensational and more popular to the lower class. He

hired boys to hawk the newspapers on street corners. Itwas the Penny Press that also began using advertising as away to bring readers information, but advertising alsohelped by paying for the printing and distribution of

newspapers.


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Cheap newspapers sold to the workers were a hit. His

idea was huge success and newspapers crossed that line

that made them truly mass media. Others were quick tofollow his lead. They became so powerful that they were

called Lords of the Press.


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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.


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An invention that

helped speed

news along wasthe telegraph.

Reporters were

able to sendencoded news

back to their

papers as it was

happening.


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Abraham

Lincoln became

the firstpresident to

direct armies in

the field directlyfrom the White

House.


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During thedarkest days of

the terrible warLincoln wouldpace back andforth in the

telegraph officeawaiting news ofthe fate of thenation thatwould emergefrom the newtelegraph

invention.


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Because the

telegraph wires

kept going downon a regular

basis, sometimes

the story that areporter was

trying to send got

cut off before it

was finished.


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To alleviate this

situation,

reportersdeveloped the

inverted

pyramid formof writing,

putting the most

important facts

at the beginning

of the story.


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This way, the

most important

part of the storywould most likely

reach the

newspaper, andif anything got

cut off, it would

be the lesser

important details

of what

happened.


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As newspapers began to compete more and more

with one another to increase circulation and obtaimore advertising revenue, a different type ofjournalism was developed by publishers JosephPulitzer and William Randolph Hearst.


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In the mid-1890s, Pulitzer (in the New YorkWorld)

and Hearst (in the San Francisco Examinerand late

the New YorkMorning Journal) transformed

newspapers with sensational and scandalous news

coverage, the use of drawings and the inclusion of

more features such as comic strips.


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After Pulitzer

began publishing

color comicsections that

included a strip

entitled "TheYellow Kid" (left)

in early 1896, this

type of paper was

labeled "yellow

journalism."


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Drawn by R.F.

Outcault, the

popular (if now-unfunny) strip

became a prize in

the strugglebetween Pulitzer

and Hearst in the

New York

newspaper wars.


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Yellow Kid

cartoonist Richard

Outcault


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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. Shewrote to expose the many

wrongs that developed in

nineteenth century cities after

the industrial boom. Most ofher reporting was on women.


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She directed her articles to

upper class women to open

their eyes and hearts to their

impoverished, hungry, hopeless

sisters. She felt very strongly

that women and their issues

were not represented innewspapers or any where else.


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She wanted people to know

different womens plights and

understand why some became

fallen women." She hoped

that by reading her articles

other women would want to

help their sisters. She wantedpeople to realize the unfairness

that women were afforded at

the turn of the century.


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Shegot a job on the Pittsburgh

Dispatch when she wrote a

furious letter complaining

about an editorial that claimed

that women were good for little

but housework. She covered

social questions such asdivorce, slum life, and

conditions in Mexico for the

paper.


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In 1887 she moved to Joseph

Pulitzer's New York World, for

which she exposed the

conditions in which the insane

lived by pretending to be mad

and getting herself committed

to the asylum on Blackwell'sIsland.


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The high point in her life,

however was the round-the-

world trip, which she made in

72 days, 6 hours,11 minutes

and 14 seconds. Joseph Pulitzer

sent a special train to meet her

return to San Francisco, andshe was greeted by fireworks,

gun salutes, brass bands and

parade on Broadway.


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After William Randolph Hearst moved toNew York, he and Joseph Pulitzer competed

for readers by making their papers more

and more sensational.


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In 1895, Hearst purchased the New YorkMorning Journal and entered into a head-to-

head circulation war with his former mentor,

Joseph Pulitzer, owner of the New York World.


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To increase circulation both started to include

articles about the Cuban Insurrection. Many

stories in both newspaper greatly exaggerated

their claims to make the stories more

sensational.


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Both Hearst and Pulitzer published images of

Spanish troops placing Cubans into

concentration camps where they were suffered

and died from disease and hunger.


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The American public purchased more

newspapers because of the sensational writing,

and this strongly encouraged Hearst and

Pulitzers newspapers to write more

sensationalized stories.


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Circulation continued to soar as the Journal

reported that an American civilian was

imprisoned without a trial and stating that no

American was safe in Cuba as long as Weyler

was in charge.


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Another major story that enraged the American

public was written by one of Hearst's

reporters, Richard Harding Davis, who came

upon the story while on his way back from Cuba.


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The reporter learned of the story of Senorita

Clemencia Arango. Arango was forced out of

Cuba for helping the rebels, and was supposedly

strip-searched by Spanish detectives.


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This angered the Victorian ideals of the

American public even though the story was found

to be in error and that a woman searched Arango

and not Spanish male detectives.


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This cartoon made fun of the way Hearst and

Pulitzer were each claiming to own the story

about the Spanish-American War.


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As the U.S. population in the

latter half of the 20th

century has shifted fromcities to suburbs, and with

the growth in competition

from other media, many

large city newspapers havehad to cease publication,

merge with their

competitors, or be taken over

by a chain of newspaperpublishers such as the

Gannett Company or

Knight-Ridder Inc.


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In 1982, using satellite

transmission and color

presses, the Gannett chainestablished a new national

newspaper, USA Today,

published and circulated

throughout the UnitedStates, Europe, and Asia.


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As the U.S. population in the

latter half of the 20th

century has shifted fromcities to suburbs, and with

the growth in competition

from other media, many

large city newspapers havehad to cease publication,

merge with their

competitors, or be taken over

by a chain of newspaperpublishers such as the

Gannett Company or

Knight-Ridder Inc.


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Since the invention of the

telegraph, which enormously

facilitated the rapid

gathering of news, the great

news agencies, such as

Reuters in England, Agence

France-Presse in France, andAssociated Press and United

Press International in the

United States, have sold their

services to newspapers andto their associate members.


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Improvements in

photocomposition and in

printing (especially the web

offset press), have enhanced

the quality of print and made

possible the publication of

huge editions at great speed.Modern newspapers are

supported primarily by the

sale of advertising space.

Computer technology hasalso had an enormous impact

on the production of news

and newspapers.


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By the 1990s this technology

had also affected the nature

of newspapers, as the first

independent on-line daily

appeared on the Internet. By

the decade's end some 700

papers had web sites, someof which carried news

gathered by their own staffs,

and papers regularly

scooped themselves bypublishing electronically

before the print edition

appeared.

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