978-1305580985 Chapter 3

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

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.

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?

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?

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?

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

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

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

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.