Chapter 3: Newspapers to Digital frontiers

The Early History of American Journalism

• News- The process of gathering info & making narrative reports— edited by individuals in a news organizations— that create selected frames of reference and help the public make sense of prominent people, important events and unusual happenings in everyday life.

• News was passed orally: (from family to family), community leaders, and historical sites

• Written form shift news from elites and local leaders to mass medium and took many dif styles all that covered people’s “need to know”

• Partisan Press- an early dominant style of American journalism distinguished by opinion newspapers, which generally argued one political pov or pushed the plan of the particular party that subsidized the paper

  • Served vital function before, during, and after the Revolutionary period to critique gov and disseminating the views of political parties

  • Disseminated views of political parties that sponsored newspapers

• Commercial Shipping news

  • Offered updates on markets and ships

  • Evolved into modern business section

• Colonial Newspapers:

  • Ben Franklin: Pennsylvania Gazette was the first to make money by printing ads alongside news

  • Significant colonial paper, the New York Weekly Journal founded by the Popular Party (Political group that opposed British rule) published articles that attack on the royal governor of NY.

  • John Zenger (printer) was arrested for seditious libel. Employed Philadelphia lawyer and won to lay the foundation of the 1st Amendment—the right of democratic press to criticize pubic officials.

• Penny Papers- Newspapers that (bc of innovations in printing) were able to drip their price to one cent in the 1830s, thereby making papers affordable to the working & emerging middle class and became a mass medium

  • 1833: Benjamin Day’s New York Sun (covers local events, scandals, police reports, serialized stories)

  • Many were Fabricated stores and blazed the trail of celebrity news

  • Relayed new stores around world by telegraph later used radio waves

  • Human-Interest Stories: News account that focus on the trails and tribulations of the human condition, often featuring ordinary individuals facing extraordinary challenges

  • 1835: James Gordon Bennet’s New York Morning Herald was the first U.S. press baron; completely controlled paper’s content for the middle class

• Wire Services- Commercial organizations, began with Associated Press (AP), that share news stories & info by relying them around the country and the world via telegraph and now satellite transmission

  • Newspapers moved from entrepreneurial stage → mass medium

  • Newspapers learn of the financial reward of sharing differing political viewpoint and wire services needed to offer material Newspapers would buy

  • Inverted Pyramid- A style of journalism in which news reports begin with the most dramatic newsworthy info— answering who, what, when, and where (sometimes how) questions at the top of the story— and trail off w/ less significant details

• Yellow journalism- A newspaper style that peaked in the 1890s, emphasized high-interest stories, sensational crime news, large headline, and serious reports that exposed corruption, particularly in business and gov

  • Two maj characteristics: Over dramatic stories about crime, celebrities disasters, scandals, and intrigue OR New reports exposing corruption in business and gov—foundation for investigative journalism

  • Puiltzer & Hearst dev elements of modern journalism: Investigative, advice, and feature

The Evolution of Newspaper Journalism: Competing Models and the Rise of Professionalism

• The 1920s saw the rise of Interpretive Journalism that aimed to explain events & place them in context

• Adolph Ochs & the New York Times (1896) distance from yellow journalism and focused on documentation of maj event, plus lower prices to a penny to attracting middle-class readers

• Objective journalism- Modern style of journalism that distinguishes factual reports from opinion columns; reporters strive to remain neutral toward the issue or event they cover, searching out competing pov among the sources for a story

  • Neutral attitude when covering events

  • Competing pov for balance coverage

• Interpretive journalism- Type of journalism that involves analyzing and explaining key issues or events and placing them in a broader historical or social context

  • Dev partly in response to poor reporting of cause of WWI

• Rise of Radio in 1930s intensified tension between objective and interpretive. Newspaper editors and lobbyist argued that radio should only provide interpretive. So Radio dev well-known news commentators who reported stories w/ their own analysis

Journalism Evolves across Media

• During 20th Century as radio, TV, and later internet entered the scene, journalism moved into each realm and adapting practice into new platforms

• TV news dramatized American’s key events visually, many found visual images far more compelling & memorable than written descriptions

  • Impacted convergence: Reporters also provide audio & video w/ stories

• Shortcomings for televised news: News directors have to fit stories in between commercials, time in a finite commodity, and reporters gain credibility from providing on-the-spot reporting

• Print reporters can conduct interviews via email

  • Critics argue what this takes spontaneity our of interview

• Wide ranging resources of the internet make it easier for reports to copy other’s work

The Culture of New & Rituals of Reporting

• Newsworthy- Often-understated criteria that journalist use to determine which events and issues should become news reports, including timeliness, proximity, conflict, prominence, human interest, consequences, usefulness, novelty, and deviance

• Journalist began to dev a way to help reporters present their findings in a neutral way:

  • The inverted-pyramid news lead: starting reports with the most important info

  • The careful attribution of sources: favoring quoted interview subjects rather than the reporter’s analysis

  • The minimal use of adverbs & adjectives: no ornate/flowery language in order to appear factual

  • The detached 3rd pov: using omniscient or all-knowing, authorial pow favor by many novelist

• Critics argue total neutrality is an impossible goal; just deciding what info and experiences, journalist present their pov of their stories. It also can create dangerous blind spots and undermine ethics

• Assumptions of norms and natural play in a role when trying to fine the neutral position, especially w/ dealing social issues

• Journalist are taught that getting accurate info is the gold standard and best defense against libel lawsuit

• Critics argue that the golden standard isn’t always met: journalist are humans that make honest mistakes, have workload pressures from deadlines prevent adequate fact-checking, and outright lie in desire for self-promotion by sources

• Values of American Journalism:

  • Neutrality; lack of bias

  • Diversity

  • Getting a good story

  • Getting a story first

  • Getting a story “right”

• Other Values in Journalism:

  • Ethnocentrism- Underlying value held by many U.S. journalist & citizens, involves judging the other countries and culture according to how they live up to or imitate American practices and ideals

  • Responsible Capitalism- Underlying value held by many U.S. journalist & citizens, assumes that businesspeople compete w/ one another to increase prosperity for all

  • Small-town pastoralism- Underlying value held by many U.S. journalist & citizens, it favors the small over the large and rural over the urban

  • Individualism- Underlying value held by many U.S. journalist & citizens, favors individual rights and responsibilities over group needs or institutional mandates

• Professional code of ethics: seek the truth, hold powerful accountable, maintain integrity, consider consequences, and avoid conflict of interest

• Conflict of Interest- Considered unethical, a compromising situation in which a journalist stands to benefit personally from the news report he or she produces

The Economic of Journalism in the 21st Century

• Newshole- The space left over in newspaper for news content after all the ads are placed

• Paywall- An arrangement restricting website access to paid subscribers

• Feature Syndicates- Commercial outlets or brokers, that contract w/ newspaper to provide work from well-known political writers, editors, cartoonist, comic-strip artist, and self-help columnist

• Newspaper chains- Large companies that own several papers throughout the country

Changes, Challenges, and Threats to Journalism Today

• Social Media

  • Provide immediacy and source of breaking-news events

  • No room for thorough reporting, fabricated info, and blowing news aggregaton

• Citizen Journalism- Grassroots movement wherein activist amateurs and concerned citizens (not professional journalist) use internet tools to disseminate news and information

  • Increase of satirical and “fake” news

  • Attacks on journalist and journalism

• Satiric journalism

• Fake News

  • News & websites meant to mislead

  • Prevalent since 2016 U.S president election

  • Using “fake news” label to refer to legitimate journalism to muddy the waters

• Social responsibility

  • Professional conflicts over ethical way to practice journalism

• The trouble future of journalism

  • Survival of free press is not certain

  • Fewer outlets, concentrated ownership

  • Citizens must be mindful of news sources

  • Anti-journalism propaganda & threats of violence