Development of Newspapers

Early American & Colonial Period

• Early newspapers were small and mostly shared news from other countries or government messages.

• Printers and postmasters ran them, which often made news delivery slow.

• News was often old, sometimes weeks or months.

• Newspapers weren't truly independent; they often worked for political groups.

• $1690$: Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick

  • This was the first American newspaper, but the government stopped it after only one issue.

Political Press $1790$–$1833$

• The First Amendment ($1791$) gave newspapers freedom to print more freely.

• Many more papers started, but they cost a lot, so mostly rich, educated people read them.

• Milestones:

  • Freedom’s Journal ($1827$): The first newspaper by Black Americans, working for their rights.

  • Cherokee Phoenix/Cherokee Advocate ($1828$): The first newspaper by Native Americans, printed in English and their own language.

Penny Press & Mass Circulation (mid-19th c.)

• New York City had lots of people and more learning to read, which helped newspapers grow.

• In $1833$, Benjamin Day’s New York Sun became very cheap ($1¢$) and focused on local crime and interesting human stories.

• Newspapers earned money from ads and by selling cheap copies on the streets.

Wire Services

• In $1848$, New York newspapers started sharing costs to get news from ships, creating shared reporting.

• This led to big news groups like the New York Associated Press ($1856$), later AP ($1900$), UP ($1907$), and INS ($1909$).

• They shared costs to get news from far away faster and cheaper.

Big Business & Yellow Journalism (late 19th c.)

• The telegraph and Civil War news made reporters write important facts first.

• "Yellow press" used big, dramatic, or fake stories to sell more papers. It also pushed for deeper, investigative reporting and new ways to design newspaper pages.

Jazz Journalism & Inter-war Years

• From about $1919$–$1924$, papers became smaller (tabloid size), used lots of photos, and focused on celebrities, sex, and violence.

• Big companies started owning many newspapers, leading to fewer but larger papers.

• During the Great Depression, many papers closed, and radio began taking away their ads.

Post-$1990$ Decline & Digital Shift

• After $1990$, fewer people read print newspapers as the internet grew and took away their ads.

• Papers struggled online and are still trying to figure out the best digital approach.

Prospects

• Many newspapers need money from big companies to stay alive.

• They will likely be a mix: some print, but mostly updated online news for web and phones.

• They'll earn money from ads and perhaps from people paying for specific types of content.

• Journalists will need to create news using audio, video, and blogs, not just writing.

Five Core Content Areas

1. Advertising

   • Small ads for jobs or homes.

   • Bigger ads with pictures.

   • Flyers put inside the paper.

2. Opinion

   • This section shares the paper's own opinions (editorials) and opinions from other writers (op-eds), creating a place for different ideas.

3. News

   • Fun, less urgent stories.

   • Important, current facts (like politics or crime).

   • Deep, detailed investigations.

   • News comes from their own reporters, news agencies, or special content sources.

4. Graphics

   • Pictures, maps, comics, and political drawings that explain or entertain.

   • How the page is designed shows which stories are most important.

5. Photojournalism

   • Uses pictures and words together to tell a story.

   • Photos help people remember events.

   • Photos let us see events we can't attend.

News Values (Selection Criteria)

• Impact: How much an event changes people's lives.

• Conflict: Stories about arguments or conflicts.

• Proximity: How near the event happened.

• Disaster: Bad events like accidents or natural problems.

• Prominence: Stories about well-known people or important places.

• Human Interest: Stories that make us feel something about other people.

• Timeliness: How recently the event happened.

Malaysian Newspaper Landscape

• Malaysia has newspapers in many languages: English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil.

• Some of the oldest papers are New Straits Times ($1845$, English), Sin Chew Daily ($1929$, Chinese), and Berita Harian ($1957$, Malay).

• A strict law from $1984$ (Printing Presses & Publications Act) lets the government control newspapers and even stop them from printing.

Online Evolution

• Star Online ($1995$) was the first big Malaysian news website, followed quickly by NST, Utusan, and Berita Harian by $1997$.

• Website types:

  • Websites that copy print newspapers.

  • News sites that only exist online and often share different views (like Malaysiakini).

  • Sites that collect news links from many sources (like Yahoo! News).

  • People sharing news on social media, especially when typical reporters can't. This is called "citizen journalism."