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© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
Chapter 3 – Newspapers: Mobilizing Delivery
Chapter Outline
• First Mass Medium to Deliver News
• Publishers Fight for an Independent Press
James Franklin’s New England Courant Establishes an Independent
Press Tradition
Benjamin Franklin Introduces Competition
Truth Versus Libel: The Zenger Trial
Women’s Early Role as Publishers
Birth of the Partisan Press
The Stamp Act
The Alien and Sedition Laws
• Technology Helps Newspapers Reach New Readers
Frontier Journalism
Ethnic and Native American Newspapers
Dissident Voices Create the Early Alternative Press
• Newspapers Seek Mass Audiences and Big Profits
• Newspapers Dominate the Early 20th Century
Competition Breeds Sensationalism
Yellow Journalism is Born: Hearst’s Role in the Spanish-American War
Tabloid Journalism: Selling Sex and Violence
• Unionization Encourages Professionalism
• Television Brings New Competition
• Alternative Press Revives Voices of Protest
• Newspapers Expand and Contract
• Newspapers at Work
• Technology Transforms Production
• Consolidation Increases Chain Ownership
• Newspapers Fight to Retain Readers
• National Newspapers Seek a Wider Audience
• Internet Editions Open Up New Markets
• Today’s Newspaper Audience Is a Moving Target
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
Suggested Activities, Discussions, and Exercises
1. Lecture on the structure and workings of a daily newspaper newsroom,
perhaps with the help of a newspaper editor and/or reporter as a guest
lecturer. Discuss the pressures of deadlines, the impact of budget
decisions, and the ethical considerations those pressures create.
2. Assign each student to access papers online, including The New York
Times, The Los Angeles Times, or their local newspaper on the date the
student was born and exactly 25 years before the student’s birth. Ask the
students to write a paper comparing the two issues, 25 years apart,
employing such criteria as story length, design, advertising, price, writing
style, and so on.
3. Visit a local newspaper to see the process of putting a newspaper
together. If possible, have an editorial staffer give the tour.
4. Assign your students to look at an Internet newspaper. Have each student
select a different online paper. Have them pull two stories from each paper
and discuss their impression of the format of the newspaper, its editorial
perspective, and other key questions about the paper and its approach to
journalism. Students can share the information they find in class, in an
online discussion forum, or write papers on their discoveries.
5. Ask students, in small groups, to inventory the entertainment content of a
local newspaper and a national newspaper, and to determine the
proportion of the papers devoted to hard news, soft news (features and
special sections), editorial opinion and entertainment (such as comics,
puzzles, and columns). Ask students to envision the demographic and
lifestyle characteristics of the audience that would be attracted to the
entertainment elements of the newspaper; the feature elements; the
opinion elements; the columns. Ask students to discuss in class, or assign
a brief paper on the subject.
Activity Pages
Use the following activity pages as class handouts for exercises and to
accompany some of the classroom Ideas described above.
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
Internet Newspapers
Using the computer resources that are available to you, go online and look at
three newspapers or news services. (Use the Web addresses provided at the end
of Chapter 3.) Print copies of at least two stories from each paper or news service
on topics that interest you. Then, browse through the services offered by each
news organization to answer the following questions.
1. Which newspapers/news services did you study?
2. How is each similar? How is each different?
3. What type of information and services does each offer? How do these services differ from the
printed edition?
4. What types of information and services appeal to you most? Which would or do you use on a
regular basis and why?
5. What two stories did you print from each source? List them here.
6. Why did you choose those stories? Would you read them in a printed newspaper, or did a
special Internet feature catch your eye (graphics, links, video, for example)?
7. How might Internet newspapers change the ways you interact with printed newspapers now or
in the future?
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
Newspaper Guest Speaker
Invite a reporter or an editor from your local daily newspaper to class and discuss
how a paper operates—how it finds news, reports news, makes decisions about
story placement and photographs, for example. Then invite a reporter or an editor
from a local alternative newspaper and ask similar questions. In class, brainstorm
ideas for questions to ask both people—some suggestions follow. Take good
notes and be prepared to write an essay comparing the two kinds of newspapers.
• What is the proper spelling of your
name and your job title?
• How did you become a journalist?
What did you do as a student and young
person that led you to where you are
now?
• How did you come to your paper? How
long have you been there? Have you
held different positions at your paper?
What were they?
• What is your job now? What do you do
each day?
• How does your paper decide what is
important to cover on a daily/weekly
basis? Who makes the final decisions
about what is included in the paper?
• Who are the people who read your
paper? Is there such a thing as a
“typical” reader?
• What is your paper’s circulation—in the
paper edition and on the Internet?
• How many pages/sections are in the
paper each day? What are the most
important ones?
• What are the best-read sections of
your newspaper?
• What is the ratio of news to advertising
in your paper? What does a full-page
color ad cost on the back of a section on
a Sunday?
• How many reporters work on your
paper? How does your paper assign
beats to reporters?
• How many editors work on your
paper? What are their assignments?
• How many photojournalists work on
your paper? How are they assigned
work?
• Tell us about a major story you
covered (or edited) recently. How did it
come about? How was it handled? How
many different people participated to get
that story into the paper?
• What are some of the paper’s biggest
challenges in the 21st century?
• What do you like best about your job?
What do you like least?
• Does your newspaper have an Internet
edition? What kinds of services does it
offer to readers? What services does it
offer that are different from the printed
newspaper?
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
USA Today/Local Paper Comparison
Obtain a copy of your local daily paper and USA Today for the same date. (If you
have Internet access and both papers have Internet editions, look at them online,
noting the addresses of each.) Read both of them carefully, taking notes about
their similarities and differences. Then write an essay or discuss in class the
answers to the questions below.
• Look carefully at the front pages of each paper. How would you classify the stories—as
international, national, state or local news? (Identify each story—you can do this in your
text or in a chart format.)
• How do you think the editors of both papers chose these stories for the front page?
Why do you think they chose the stories they did?
• Describe what you imagine is a typical reader for your local daily paper. Describe a
typical USA Today reader. How do they differ? How are they similar?
•USA Today has no local audience. How do you think that affects editors’ news
decisions? How do the editors attempt to meet “local” interests across the nation?
• Do you agree with some media critics who argue that USA Today is merely “fast-food
news”? Does it do a good job of serving its readers? Does your local paper do a better
job of serving its readers? How?
• How could both papers do a better job for their readers? Be specific in your
suggestions for each newspaper.
• Look at both papers on the Internet and discuss the ways the papers are different
online compared to their print versions. What are the advantages of the Internet
versions? What are the advantages of the printed versions? Are there disadvantages to
each version?
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
Chapter 3 Quiz
Multiple Choice
1. Early colonial newspapers:
a. were free to criticize the government.
b. supported the Stamp Act.
c. printed “Published by Authority” on the first page to indicate British approval.
d. were financed by political parties.
2. Which British action turned most colonial printers into revolutionaries?
a. passage of the Stamp Act
b. the Boston Tea Party
c. the trial of John Peter Zenger
d. the burning of Washington
ANS: A
3. What was the U.S. federal government’s first attempt to control the
press?
a. the Alien and Sedition Laws
b. the Stamp Act
c. the tax on new printing presses
d. the Anti-Muckraking Act
ANS: A
4. Sedition is:
a. the process by which government certifies members of the press to cover
news stories.
b. language that damages a person by questioning that person’s reputation.
c. another name for yellow journalism.
d. writing that, authorities claim, could incite rebellion against the government.
ANS: D
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
5. Yellow journalism:
a. was denounced from the beginning by several publishers, including Joseph
Pulitzer.
b. refers to newspapers that print on yellow paper.
c. is a form of sensationalized reporting that emphasizes crime, sex, and
violence.
d. was never practiced in the United States.
6. Which newspaper was founded by Frederick Douglass and was often
called the most important African-American pre-Civil War newspaper?
a. the North Star
b. the Liberator
c. Freedom’s Journal
d. the New York Sun
7. Internet versions of newspapers:
a. carry more advertising than their print counterparts.
b. generate a lot less advertising revenue than print editions.
c. charge much more for content than print newspapers.
d. only publish articles that also appear in their print editions.
8. The publisher who, in 1833, lowered the price of his paper to a penny and
sold it daily on the street was:
a. Joseph Pulitzer.
b. William Randolph Hearst.
c. Benjamin Day.
d. Horace Greeley.
9. The tradition of an independent press in America was established in
1721 through defiance of British control by:
a. Benjamin Franklin.
b. John Peter Zenger.
c. John Campbell.
d. James Franklin.
ANS: D
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
10. According to the Impact/Society box, “Percentage of Adults Who Say
They Read a Newspaper Yesterday,” which portion of the population is
most likely to use their newspapers as their main news source (including
Internet and mobile phone readers)?
a. adults aged 50–64
b. adults aged 65+
c. adults aged 18–29
d. adults aged 30–49
True/False
1. The trial of John Peter Zenger established the legal principle that truth is a
defense against a libel suit.
2. Today, most major cities have at least two daily newspapers.
ANS: F
3. Under the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798, many editors were sent to jail for
criticizing the nation’s leaders.
4. More than half of what is published in a daily newspaper is advertising.
5. Chain ownership of newspapers has expanded the sources of information for
readers.
Essay Questions
2. Describe the working structure of a typical modern newspaper, listing the
© 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly
the current structure differ from the structure and operation of a colonial
American newspaper?
3. Briefly describe the struggle of the colonial and early U.S. press to
establish its independence from government control, naming and briefly
describing at least four key events in the progress of that struggle.
4. Briefly discuss the pros and cons of the format of the national newspaper
USA Today, as seen by its readers and its critics. How is USA Today
similar to and different from its other national competitors? How do
national newspapers accommodate local advertisers?
5. Discuss newspapers’ role on the Internet and the ways in which Internet
newspapers are changing in order to appeal to different kinds of
newspaper readers.
