History of American journalism

Journalism in America began as a humble affair and became a political force in the campaign for American independence. Following independence the first article of U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and speech and the American press grew rapidly following the American Revolution. The press became a key support element to the country's political parties but also organized religious institutions.

During the 19th century newspapers began to expand and appear outside eastern U.S. cities. From the 1830s onward the Penny press began to play a major role in American journalism and technological advancements such as the telegraph and faster printing presses in the 1840s helped expand the press of the nation as it experienced rapid economic and demographic growth.

By 1900 major newspapers had become profitable powerhouses of advocacy, muckraking and sensationalism, along with serious, and objective news-gathering. During the early 20th Century, prior to rise of television, the average American read several newspapers per-day. Starting in the 1920s changes in technology again morphed the nature of American journalism as radio and later, television, began to play increasingly important roles.

In the late 20th Century, much of American journalism became housed in big media conglomerates (principally owned by the media moguls, Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch). With the coming of digital journalism in the 21st Century, all newspapers faced a business crisis as readers turned to the internet for sources and advertisers followed them. New social media technologies such as Twitter have proved to be a major source and venue for American journalism in the early 21st century.

see also History of American newspapers

Origins

The History of American journalism began in 1690, when Benjamin Harris published the first edition of "Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick" in Boston. Harris intended to publish a regular weekly newspaper along the lines of those that existed in London, but he did not get prior approval and his paper was suppressed after a single edition. The first successful newspaper, The Boston News-Letter, was launched in 1704. This time, the founder was John Campbell, the local postmaster, and his paper proclaimed that it was "published by authority."

As the colonies grew rapidly in the 18th century, new papers appeared in port cities along the East Coast, usually started by master printers seeking a sideline. Among them was James Franklin, founder of the The New England Courant (1721-1727), where he employed his younger brother, Benjamin Franklin, as a printer's apprentice. Like many other colonial newspapers, it was aligned with party interests. Ben Franklin was first published in his brother's newspaper, under the pseudonym Silence Dogood, in 1722, and even his brother did not know at first. Pseudonymous publishing represented a common practice of newspapers of that time of protecting writers from retribution from government officials and others they criticized, often to the point of what would be considered libel today. The content included advertising of newly landed products, and locally produced news items, usually based on commercial and political events. Editors exchanged their papers, and frequently reprinted news from other cities. Essays and letters to the editor, often anonymous, provided opinions on current issues. While religious news was thin, writers typically interpreted good news in terms of God's favor, and bad news as evidence of His wrath. The fate of criminals was often cast as cautionary tales warning of the punishment for sin.[1]

Ben Franklin moved to Philadelphia in 1728 and took over the Pennsylvania Gazette the following year. Ben Franklin expanded his business by essentially franchising other printers in other cities, who published their own newspapers. By 1750, 14 weekly newspapers were published in the six largest colonies. The largest and most successful of these could be published up to three times per week.

American Independence

When the word began in 1775, 37 weekly newspapers were in operation; 20 survived the war, and 33 new ones started up. The British blockade sharply curtailed the importation of paper, ink, and new equipment; one result was a reduced size and delays in publication. When the war ended in 1782, there were 35 newspapers with a combined circulation of about 40,000 copies copies per week, and an actual readership in the hundreds of thousands. They played a major role in defining the grievances of the colonists against the British government in the 1765-1775 era, and in supporting the American Revolution.[2][3]

The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed paper, and the burden of the tax fell on printers. They led the successful fight to repeal the tax.[4] By the early 1770s, most newspapers supported the Patriot cause; Loyalist newspapers were often forced to shut down Or moved to Loyalist strongholds especially New York City.[5] Publishers up and down the colonies widely reprinted the pamphlets by Thomas Paine, especially "Common Sense" (1776). His Crisis essays first appeared in the newspaper press starting in December, 1776, when he warned:

These are the times that try men's souls areas the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.[6]
Anne Catherine Hoof Green, publisher of the Maryland Gazette, 1767-1775.

Every week the Maryland Gazette of Annapolis promoted the Patriot cause and also reflected informed Patriot viewpoints. From the time of the Stamp Act publisher Jonas Green vigorously protested British actions. When he died in 1767, his widow Anne Catherine Hoof Green became the first woman to hold either of the top jobs at an American newspaper.[7] A strong supporter of colonial rights, she published the newspapers as well as many pamphlets with the help of two sons; She died in 1775. During the war, contributors debated the issue of the established church, use of coercion against neutrals and Loyalists, the meaning of Paine's "Common Sense", and the confiscation of Loyalist property. Much attention was devoted to the details of military campaigns, typically with an upbeat optimistic tone.[8]

Patriot editors often sharply criticized government action or inaction. In peacetime criticism might lead to a loss of valuable printing contract, but in wartime the government needed the newspapers. Furthermore, there were enough different governments and political factions that editors could be protected by their friends. When Thomas Paine lost his patronage job with Congress because of a letter he published, the state government soon hired him.[9]

First Party System

Main article: First Party System

Newspapers flourished in the new republic — by 1800, there were about 234 being published — and tended to be very partisan about the form of the new federal government, which was shaped by successive Federalist or Republican presidencies. Newspapers directed much abuse toward various politicians, and the eventual duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr was fueled by controversy in newspaper pages.

Federalist poster about 1800. Washington (in heaven) tells partisans to keep the pillars of Federalism, Republicanism and Democracy

By 1796, both parties sponsored national networks of weekly newspapers, which attacked each other vehemently.[10] The Federalist and Republican newspapers of the 1790s traded vicious barbs against their enemies.[11]

The most heated rhetoric came in debates over the French Revolution, especially the Jacobin Terror of 1793–94 when the guillotine was used daily. Nationalism was a high priority, and the editors fostered an intellectual nationalism typified by the Federalist effort to stimulate a national literary culture through their clubs and publications in New York and Philadelphia, and Noah Webster's efforts to simplify and Americanize the language.[12]

Penny Press, Telegraph and Party Politics

As American cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington grew, so did newspapers. Larger printing presses, the telegraph, and other technological innovations allowed newspapers to print thousands of copies, boost circulation, and increase revenue. In the largest cities some papers were politically independent. But most of the, especially in smaller cities, were closely tied to the political parties, which used them for communication and campaigning. Their editorials explained the party position on all current issues, and damned the opposition.[13]

The first newspaper to fit the 20th century style of a newspaper was the New York Herald, founded in 1835 and published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr.. It was politically independent, and became the first newspaper to have city staff covering regular beats and spot news, along with regular business and Wall Street coverage. In 1838 Bennett also organized the first foreign correspondent staff of six men in Europe and assigned domestic correspondents to key cities, including the first reporter to regularly cover Congress.[14]

The leading partisan newspaper was the New York Tribune, which began publishing in 1841 and was edited by Horace Greeley. It was the first newspaper to gain national prominence; by 1861, it shipped thousands of copies of its daily and weekly editions to subscribers throughout the door. Greeley also organized a professional news staff and embarked on frequent publishing crusades for causes he believed in. The Tribune was the first newspaper, in 1886, to use the linotype machine, invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler, which rapidly increased the speed and accuracy with which type could be set. it allowed a newspaper to publish multiple editions the same day, updating the front page with the latest business and sports news.[15]

The New York Times, now one of the best-known newspapers in the world, was founded in 1851 by George Jones and Henry Raymond. It established the principle of balanced reporting in high-quality writing. Its prominence emerged in the 20th century.[16]

Growth of newspapers outside eastern U.S. cities

The influence of these large newspapers in New York and other Eastern cities slowly spread to smaller cities and towns, weekly newspapers gave way to dailies, and competition between newspapers even in small towns became fierce. In the Midwest and beyond, there was a boom for local newspapers, which remained more focused on local news and services than the larger urban newspapers. Many newspapers flourished during the conquest of the West, as homesteaders were required to publish notices of their land claims in local newspapers. Some of these papers died out after the land rushes ended, or when the railroad bypassed the town.[17]

The rise of the wire services

The American Civil War had a profound effect on American journalism. Large newspapers hired war correspondents to cover the battlefields, with more freedom than correspondents today enjoy. These reporters used the new telegraph and expanding railways to move news reports faster to their newspapers. The cost of sending telegraphs helped create a new concise or "tight" style of writing which became the standard for journalism through the next century.[18]

The ever-growing demand for urban newspapers to provide more news led to the organization of the first of the wire services, a cooperative between six large New York City-based newspapers led by David Hale, the publisher of the Journal of Commerce, and James Gordon Bennett, to provide coverage of Europe for all of the papers together. What became the Associated Press received the first cable transmission ever of European news through the trans-Atlantic cable in 1858.[19]

New forms of journalism

The New York dailies continued to redefine journalism. James Bennett's Herald, for example, didn't just write about the disappearance of David Livingstone in Africa; they sent Henry Stanley to find him, which he did, in Uganda. The success of Stanley's stories prompted Bennett to hire more of what would turn out to be investigative journalists. He also was the first American publisher to bring an American newspaper to Europe by founding the Paris Herald, which was the precursor of the International Herald Tribune. Charles Anderson Dana of the New York Sun developed the idea of the human interest story and a better definition of news value, including uniqueness of a story.[20]

Yellow Journalism

Further information: Yellow journalism

William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer both owned newspapers in the American West, and both established papers in New York City: Hearst's New York Journal in 1883 and Pulitzer's New York World in 1896. Their stated missions to defend the public interest, their circulation wars and their embrace of sensational reporting, which spread to many other newspapers, led to the coinage of the phrase "yellow journalism." While the public may have benefitted from the beginnings of "muckraking" journalism, their often excessive coverage of juicy stories with sensational reporting turned many readers against them.[21]

Progressive Era

The Progressive Era saw a strong middle class demand for reform, which the leading newspapers and magazines supported with editorial crusades.

Building on President McKinley's effective use of the press, President Theodore Roosevelt made his White House the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. After noticing the White House reporters huddled outside in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. The grateful press, with unprecedented access to the White House, rewarded Roosevelt with ample coverage.[22]

By 1910 most farmers subscribed to a farm newspaper; editors typically promoted efficiency as applied to farming.[23]

Muckraking

Main article: Muckraker

Muckrakers were investigative journalists, sponsored by large national magazines, who investigated political corruption, as well as misdeeds by corporations and labor unions.[24][25][26]

Exposes attracted a middle-class upscale audience during the Progressive Era, especially in 1902 – 1912. By the 1900s, such major magazines as Collier's Weekly, Munsey's Magazine and McClure's Magazine sponsored exposés for a national audience. The January 1903 issue of McClure's marked the beginning of muckraking journalism, while the muckrakers would get their label later. Ida M. Tarbell ("The History of Standard Oil"),[27] Lincoln Steffens ("The Shame of Minneapolis") and Ray Stannard Baker ("The Right to Work"), simultaneously published famous works in that single issue. Claude H. Wetmore and Lincoln Steffens' previous article "Tweed Days in St. Louis", in McClure's October 1902 issue was the first muckraking article.[28]

President Roosevelt enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle-class base. While out of office, he made a living as a writer and magazine editor. He loved talking with intellectuals, authors and writers. He drew the line, however, at expose-oriented scandal-mongering journalists who during his term set magazine subscriptions soaring by their attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. Roosevelt himself was not a target, but his speech in 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "The liar," he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves." [29] The muckraking style fell out of fashion after 1917, as the media pulled together to support the war effort with minimum criticism of personalities.

Starting in the 1960s, investigative journalism came back into fashion, as typified by Bob Woodward and the Washington Post exposés of the Watergate scandal. At the local level, the alternative press movement emerged, typified by alternative weekly newspapers like The Village Voice in New York City and The Phoenix in Boston, as well as political magazines like Mother Jones and The Nation.

Professionalization

Winfield argues that 1908 represented a turning point in the professionalization of journalism, as characterized by the new journalism schools of the University Missouri and Columbia University,[30] the founding of the National Press Club, and such technological innovations as newsreels, the use of halftones to print photographs, and changes in newspaper design.[31]

Rise of the African-American press

The rampant discrimination against African-Americans did not prevent them from founding their own daily and weekly newspapers, especially in large cities. These newspapers and other publications flourished because of the loyalty their readers had to them. The first black newspaper was the Freedom's Journal, and it was first published on March 16, 1827 by John B. Russwurm and Samuel Cornish.[32]

Poster from the U.S. Office of War Information, 1943

By the 20th century, African-American newspapers flourished in the major cities, with publishers playing a major role in politics and business affairs. Representative leaders included Robert Sengstacke Abbott ( 1870-1940), publisher of the Chicago Defender; John Mitchell, Jr. (1863 – 1929), editor of the Richmond Planet and president of the National Afro-American Press Association; Anthony Overton (1865 – 1946), publisher of the Chicago Bee, and Robert Lee Vann (1879 – 1940), the publisher and editor of the Pittsburgh Courier.[33]

Foreign-language newspapers

As immigration rose dramatically during the last half of the 19th century, many Ethnic groups sponsored newspapers in their native languages to cater to their fellow expatriates. The Germans created the largest network, but their press was largely shut down in 1917-1918.[34] Yiddish Newspapers appeared for New York Jews. They had the effect of introducing newcomers from Eastern Europe to American culture and society.[35] Today, Spanish language newspapers such as El Diario La Prensa (founded in 1913) exist in Hispanic strongholds, but their circulations are small.[36]

Between the wars

A broadcast journalism began slowly in the 1920s, at a time when stations broadcast music and occasional speeches, and expanded slowly in the 1930s as radio moved to drama and entertainment. Radio exploded in importance during World War II, But after 1950, it was overwhelmed by television news. The newsreel was developed in the 1920s and flourished before the coming of daily television news broadcasting in the 1950s doomed its usefulness.

Luce empire

The first issue of Time (March 3, 1923), featuring House Speaker Joseph G. Cannon.

News magazines flourished from the late 19th century, such as Outlook and Review of Reviews. However, Henry Luce (1898-1967) transformed the genre with his Time in 1923. It became the favorite news source for the upscale middle-class. Luce, a conservative Republican, was called "the most influential private citizen in the America of his day."[37] He launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale Americans. Time summarized and interpreted the week's news. Life was a picture magazine of politics, culture and society that dominated American visual perceptions in the era before television. Fortune explored in depth the economy and the world of business, introducing to executives avant-garde ideas such as Keynesianism. Sports Illustrated probed beneath the surface of the game to explore the motivations and strategies of the teams and key players. Add in his radio projects and newsreels, and Luce created a multimedia corporation to rival that of Hearst and other newspaper chains. Luce, born in China to missionary parents, demonstrated a missionary zeal to make the nation worthy of dominating the world in what he called the "American Century." Luce hired outstanding journalists—some of them serious intellectuals,[38] as well as talented editors. By the late 20th century, however, all the Luce magazines and their imitators (such as Newsweek and Look) drastically scaled back. Newsweek ended its print edition in 2013.[39]

21st century Internet

The rapidly growing impact of the Internet, especially after 2000, brought "free" news and classified advertising to audiences that no longer cared for paid subscriptions. The Internet undercut the business model of many daily newspapers. Bankruptcy loomed across the U.S. and did hit such major papers as the Rocky Mountain news (Denver), the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, among many others. Chapman and Nuttall find that proposed solutions, such as multiplatforms, paywalls, PR-dominated news gathering, and shrinking staffs have not resolved the challenge. The result, they argue, is that journalism today is characterized by four themes: personalization, globalization, localization, and pauperization.[40]

Nip presents a typology of five models of audience connections: traditional journalism, public journalism, interactive journalism, participatory journalism, and citizen journalism. He identifies the higher goal of public journalism as engaging the people as citizens and helping public deliberation.[41]

Additionally, as investigative journalism declined at major daily newspapers in the 2000s, many reporters formed their own non-profit investigative newsrooms. Examples include ProPublica on the national level, Texas Tribune at the state level and Voice of OC at the local level.

Historiography

Journalism historian David Nord has argued that in the 1960s and 1970s:

"In journalism history and media history, a new generation of scholars . . . criticised traditional histories of the media for being too insular, too decontextualised, too uncritical, too captive to the needs of professional training, and too enamoured of the biographies of men and media organizations."[42]

In 1974, James W. Carey identified the ‘Problem of Journalism History’. The field was dominated by a Whig interpretation of journalism history.

"This views journalism history as the slow, steady expansion of freedom and knowledge from the political press to the commercial press, the setbacks into sensationalism and yellow journalism, the forward thrust into muck raking and social responsibility....the entire story is framed by those large impersonal forces buffeting the press: industrialisation, urbanisation and mass democracy.[43]

O'Malley says the criticism went too far, because there was much of value in the deep scholarship of the earlier period.[44]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Stephen L. Vaughn, ed.,Encyclopedia of American Journalism (2008) pp 108-9, 179, 330,445
  2. ↑ Vaughn, ed., Encyclopedia of American Journalism (2008), pp 17-21
  3. ↑ William Sloan and Julie Hedgepeth Williams, The early American press, 1690-1783 (1994)
  4. ↑ Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., Prelude to independence: the newspaper war on Britain, 1764-1776 (1958)
  5. ↑ Carol Sue Humphrey, This popular engine: New England newspapers during the American Revolution, 1775-1789 (1992)
  6. ↑ Thomas Paine, "The American Crisis: Number I" (1776) online
  7. ↑ Leona M. Hudak, Early American Women Printers and Publishers: 1639-1820 (1978).
  8. ↑ David C. Skaggs, "Editorial Policies of the Maryland Gazette, 1765-1783," Maryland Historical Magazine (1964) 59#4 pp 341-349 online
  9. ↑ Dwight L. Teeter, "Press Freedom and the Public Printing: Pennsylvania, 1775-83," Journalism Quarterly (1968) 45#3 pp 445-451
  10. ↑ Jeffrey L. Pasley, "The Tyranny of Printers": Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (2003)
  11. ↑ Marcus Daniel, Scandal and Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy (2009)
  12. ↑ Catherine O'Donnell Kaplan, Men of Letters in the Early Republic: Cultivating Forms of Citizenship 2008)
  13. ↑ Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A History, 1690-1960 (Macmillan, 3rd ed. 1962) pp 228-52
  14. ↑ James L. Crouthamel, Bennett's New York Herald and the Rise of the Popular Press (Syracuse University Press, 1989) online
  15. ↑ Robert C. Williams, Horace Greeley (2006)
  16. ↑ Meyer Berger, The Story of the New York Times, 1851-1951 (1951); David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (1979); Gay Tálese, The Kingdom and the Power (1969 .
  17. ↑ Mott, American Journalism: A History, 1690-1960 (3rd ed. 1962) pp 282-91
  18. ↑ Mott, American Journalism: A History, 1690-1960 (1962) pp 329-59.
  19. ↑ Richard A. Schwarzlose, The Nation's News brokers: The Formative Years from Pretelegraph to 1865 (1989).
  20. ↑ Mott, American Journalism: A History, 1690-1960 (3rd ed. 1962) pp 373-87
  21. ↑ Mott, American Journalism: A History, 1690-1960 (3rd ed. 1962) pp 519-45
  22. ↑ Rouse, Robert (March 15, 2006). "Happy Anniversary to the first scheduled presidential press conference – 93 years young!". American Chronicle.
  23. ↑ Stuart W. Shulman, "The Progressive Era Farm Press," Journalism History (1999) 25#1 pp 27-36.
  24. ↑ Judson A. Grenier, "Muckraking and the Muckrakers: An Historical Definition," Journalism Quarterly (1960) 37#4 pp 552-558.
  25. ↑ Laurie Collier Hillstrom, The Muckrakers and the Progressive Era(2009)
  26. ↑ James Reilly, "Muckraker Bibliography: The Exposé Exposed" RQ (1972) 11#3 pp. 236-239 in JSTOR
  27. ↑ Emily Arnold McCully, Ida M. Tarbell: The Woman Who Challenged Big Business--and Won! (2014)
  28. ↑ Arthur Weinberg and Lila Weinberg, eds. The Muckrakers (1961) Excerpt and text search
  29. ↑ Arthur Weinberg; Lila Shaffer Weinberg (1961). The Muckrakers. University of Illinois Press. pp. 58–66.
  30. ↑ Brad Asher, "The Professional Vision: Conflicts Over Journalism Education, 1900-1955," American Journalism (1994) 11#4 pp 304-320
  31. ↑ Betty Winfield, ed., Journalism, 1908: Birth of a Profession (2008)
  32. ↑ Charles A. Simmons, The African American press: a history of news coverage during national crises, with special reference to four black newspapers, 1827-1965 (McFarland, 2006)
  33. ↑ Patrick S. Washburn, The African American Newspaper: Voice of Freedom (2006).
  34. ↑ Carl Frederick Wittke, The German-language press in America (1973)
  35. ↑ Mordecai Soltes, "The Yiddish Press—An Americanizing Agency." in The American Jewish Year Book (1924) pp: 165-372. in JSTOR
  36. ↑ Nicolás Kanellos, "A socio-historic study of Hispanic newspapers in the United States." in Nicolas Kanellos, ed., Handbook of Hispanic cultures in the United States: Sociology (1994) pp: 239-256.
  37. ↑ Robert Edwin Herzstein (2005). Henry R. Luce, Time, and the American Crusade in Asia. Cambridge U.P. p. 1.
  38. ↑ Robert Vanderlan, Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art, and Ideas Inside Henry Luce's Media Empire (2010)
  39. ↑ Alan Brinkley, The Publisher: Henry Luce and His American Century (2010)
  40. ↑ Jane L. Chapman and Nick Nuttall, Journalism Today: A Themed History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) pp. 299, 313-314
  41. ↑ Joyce Y. M, Nip, "Exploring the second phase of public journalism," Journalism Studies. (2006) 7#2 pp 212-236.
  42. ↑ David Paul Nord, "The History of Journalism and the History of the Book," in Explorations in Communications and History, edited by Barbie Zelizer. (London: Routledge, 2008) p 164
  43. ↑ James Carey, "The Problem of Journalism History," Journalism History (1974) 1#1 pp 3,4
  44. ↑ Tom O'Malley, "History, Historians and the Writing Newspaper History in the UK c.1945–1962," Media History, (2012) 18#3 pp 289-310

Sources

Harper, R. (n.d.). The Social Media Revolution: Exploring the Impact on Journalism and News Media Organizations. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/202/the-social-media-revolution-exploring-the-impact-on-journalism-and-news-media-organizations

Newspapers. (n.d.). Retrieved December 1, 2014, from https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/newspapers/id308196376?mt=8

Further reading

The Tribune was the leading newspaper in the era of the Civil War

1780s-1830s

Penny Press, Telegraph and Party Politics

Civil War

1865-1940

1940-2010

Historiography

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