978-1319058517 Chapter 8

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PART 3

Words and Pictures

Print media, which provide a historical record and enable individualism, dominated the nineteenth

century. In the twentieth century, the newspaper, magazine, and book industries adapted as new media—

music, radio, and television—arose. Now, in the twenty-first century, print media have continued to

transform for the online digital media environment and new modes of access. Large questions remain

regarding the viability of print media business models and the consequences of digital access to

previously only hard-copy print media.

Chapter 8

Newspapers: The Rise and Decline of Modern Journalism

In this chapter, we examine the cultural, social, and economic impact of newspapers. We will:

• Trace the history of newspapers through a number of influential periods and styles

• Explore the early political-commercial press, the penny press, and yellow journalism

• Examine the modern era through the influence of the New York Times and journalism’s embrace of

objectivity

• Look at interpretive journalism in the 1920s and 1930s and the revival of literary journalism in the

1960s

• Review issues of newspaper ownership, new technologies, citizen journalism, declining revenue, and

the crucial role of newspapers in our democracy

Preview Story:

Newspaper journalism literally took center stage at the 2016 Academy Awards when the movie Spotlight

won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. The film has renewed public attention on the

important mission of the press to hold people in power accountable. Spotlight also distinguished itself for

celebrating collaborative journalism that investigates institutional failure and dysfunction rather than

dramatizing a single reporter or portraying a complex social issue through the frame of personal problems

that demand individual remedies. Sadly, the kind of expensive and time-consuming journalsm portrayed

in Spotlight is the exception rather than the rule.

I. The Evolution of American Newspapers

A. Colonial Newspapers and the Partisan Press.

B. The Penny Press Era: Newspapers Become Mass Media.

1. Day and the New York Sun.

3. Changing Economics and the Founding of the Associated Press.

C. The Age of Yellow Journalism: Sensationalism and Investigation.

1. Pulitzer and the New York World.

2. Hearst and the New York Journal.

II. Competing Models of Modern Print Journalism

A. “Objectivity” in Modern Journalism.

1. Ochs and the New York Times.

2. “Just the Facts, Please.”

B. Interpretive Journalism.

1. The Promise of Interpretive Journalism.

1. Journalism as an Art Form.

1. USA Today Colors the Print Landscape.

2. Online Journalism Redefines News.

III. The Business and Ownership of Newspapers

A. Consensus versus Conflict: Newspapers Play Different Roles.

B. Newspapers Target Specific Readers.

2. Spanish-Language Newspapers.

4. Native American Newspapers.

5. The Underground Press.

C. Newspaper Operations.

1. News and Editorial Responsibilities.

2. Wire Services and Feature Syndication.

D. Newspaper Ownership: Chains Lose Their Grip.

E. Joint Operating Agreements Combat Declining Competition.

IV. Challenges Facing Newspapers Today

A. Readership Declines in the United States.

B. Going Local: How Small and Campus Papers Retain Readers.

C. Blogs Challenge Newspapers’ Authority Online.

D. Convergence: Newspapers Struggle in the Move to Digital.

E. New Models for Journalism.

F. Alternative Voices.

V. Newspapers and Democracy

Media Literacy and the Critical Process: Covering the News Media Business

Case Study: Alternative Journalism: Dorothy Day and I. F. Stone

Digital Job Outlook: Media Professionals Speak about Jobs in the Newspaper Industry

LECTURE IDEAS

Preview Story

• If the journalism portrayed in Spotlight is to thrive, it will take more than the underwriting of a

I. The Evolution of American Newspapers

• Retrace the evolution of newspaper writing. Compare especially the story model of journalism (as

practiced by the Hearst and Pulitzer papers) with the information model (as practiced by Ochs).

Discuss the advantages and limitations of each model. Explain the economic motives behind each

story style. Explore how relevant these distinctions are today.

• Chart the developmental, entrepreneurial, and mass medium stages of newspapers.

• Compare and contrast how William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch built their media

empires.

• William Randolph Hearst used his newspaper to further his political career: He served two terms in

Congress and was a presidential candidate in 1904. He is also said to have helped start the Spanish-

American War just to have a good story to cover. Hearst published exaggerated accounts of

atrocities suffered by Cubans at the hands of the Spanish. One of the newspaper’s artists was sent

to Cuba, but he found that the situation there was peaceful and wanted to return home. Hearst

reportedly cabled him: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” Orson Welles’s Citizen

Kane was modeled after Hearst’s life.

II. Competing Models of Modern Print Journalism

• The online magazine Salon (http://www.salon.com) was founded in 1995 by five former reporters

from the San Francisco Examiner who believed that the newspaper had lost its spark. Deciding to

build an audience around talented writers and interesting content, Salon editor David Talbot (now

chair of Salon) told the New Republic in May 1997 that the idea behind Salon “is to emulate not the

• The Online Journalism Awards were launched in 2000 by the Online News Association in

conjunction with the University of Miami’s School of Communication to honor excellence in

online journalism around the world. Past winners for the General Excellence Award include

MSNBC.com, nytimes.com, spokesman.com, ELPAIS.com, CNN.com, and ProPublica.org. The

categories for the Online Journalism Awards have expanded as digital journalism has become more

innovative and varied.

III. The Business and Ownership of Newspapers

• In France, newspapers purposefully occupy specific places along the political spectrum. Le Monde is

support for their own values, while being fully conscious that another point of view is represented in

an opposing paper.

• Politically alternative newspapers have a long history in the United States. In the early twentieth

century, the country’s largest-circulation weekly newspaper was Appeal to Reason, a socialist

paper. Circulation peaked at more than 760,000 copies in 1913, and its readers were largely among

the working class and immigrants. During World War I, though, the government suppressed—

sometimes violently—leftist newspapers. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, another

alternative paper—the Daily Worker, a communist journal—saw its circulation climb to 100,000.

The communist witch-hunts of the 1940s and 1950s later devastated this newspaper’s circulation.

The Daily Worker became a weekly in the 1950s, and after a series of name changes it became the

People’s Daily World in 1986 and then the People’s Weekly World in 1990, when the newspaper had

a circulation of about 62,000. In 2010, the paper ended print circulation and became an online-only

daily publication, renamed People’s World.

an approach that is indeed different from most middle-of-the-road newspapers, including a focus on

city issues, opinionated debates, a clear political perspective, and investigative reports. The

advertising industry also discovered that alternative-press readers fall in the eighteen- to-forty-nine

age bracket, are generally college educated, and earn more than $50,000 a year.

Circulation of alternative newsweeklies had grown to seven million by 1999. Circulation remained

relatively flat—between seven million and eight million—through 2005. The combined circulation of

the top twenty alternative newsweeklies declined by about 14 percent in 2011, another 8 percent in

2012, 6 percent in 2013, and 9 percent more in 2014. In that year, the top twenty alternative

newsweeklies had a circulation of fewer than 1.5 million readers. The adoption of digital, social, and

mobile platforms offers hope for these publications to rebuild their readership.

• Solo journalism (also called “sojo” or “backpack” journalism) is an increasing trend in reporting.

Sojos are journalists who perform single-handedly the combined functions of a journalist,

photojournalist, videographer/editor, and blogger. Most often working in field locations, sojos

IV. Challenges Facing Newspapers Today

• Trends in print newspapers:

Layoffs in newsrooms are more prevalent.

Print circulation is dwindling.

Ad sales are flat or declining (although Internet ad sales are growing).

posting blog items, adding video journalism to the mix, and making audio slide shows.

• Some interesting quotes about future trends of print from leading U.S. newspaper editors:

“We will stop printing the New York Times sometime in the future, date TBD,” said Arthur

Sulzberger Jr., the paper’s publisher and chair of the New York Times Company, at a conference in

2010. A few weeks after the above comment, Bill Keller, then executive editor of the New York

2009. (The clip, at http://www.cc.com/video-clips/aamf21/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-end-

times, is just over five minutes long.)

“No trucks, no trees,” said former Boston Globe publisher Ben Taylor.

“Even though more and more of our readers are online, they’re not online all day. If they’re in wall-

business.html.)

• In September 2010, the Huffington Post “poached” two traditional journalists, Peter Goodman

(formerly of the New York Times) and Howard Fineman (formerly of Newsweek), to be editors on

the site. Arianna Huffington, the site’s cofounder, stated that the Huffington Post always intended to

journalists see an online platform as an opportunity to have more freedom with their writing and

cultivate a personal identity. Peter Goodman said in an interview about his move: “For me it’s a

chance to write with a point of view. . . . It’s sort of the age of the columnist. With the

dysfunctional political system, old conventional notions of fairness make it hard to tell readers

directly what’s going on. This is a chance for me to explore solutions in my economic reporting.”

(See Howard Kurtz, “Huffington Snags N.Y. Times Star,” Media Notes, Washington Post,

September 21, 2010. See also Jeremy Peters and Brian Stelter, “Pundit Leaves Newsweek for

Not everyone wanted to be anonymous, though; Daniel Defoe was a famous pamphleteer. Hawkers

distributed the pamphlets in streets and at marketplaces by shouting about the contents in the latest

pamphlet. Like blogs today, pamphlets were more conversational than the newspapers of the day. A

pamphlet would be distributed in the morning, and by the afternoon there would be another pamphlet

that offered a response.

eight U.S. attorneys.

• Some mainstream journalists have blamed blogs for lowering journalistic standards. The

more than one source to verify a story.

Meanwhile, bloggers often rely on anonymous sources, can post news items immediately, keep

stories alive longer than a newspaper, and do not have to worry about paying staff or earning

• Crog is a shorthand term for “carefully researched weblog.” Although these sites tend to look like

blogs, they take a more analytical, serious approach. Today, there are thousands of high-quality

crogs covering nearly every public issue, and because the sites are also rich in hyperlinks, a reader

can often delve into primary sources. As such, crogs have become of great value to journalists and

In June 2010, News Corp. put two more of its newspapers, the Times of London and the Sunday

Times, behind a paywall (following in the Wall Street Journal’s footsteps). The company reported

in November 2010 that the new Times and Sunday Times sites and the iPad app attracted more than

it would be, but its subscriptions have leveled off since that initial success, with less growth than

needed to make up for drops in advertising and print circulation. The paywall move has been

profitable and has become an accepted model in the online newspaper business, but the future of

this structure remains unclear. Digital revenue at the Times was up to $400 million in 2015, and the

paper announced a goal of doubling that number by 2020. (See the October 7, 2015, Times memo

of 2015, the New York Times had more than one million digital subscribers and had collaborated

with Google to create NYT VR (http://nytimes.com/VR), a virtual reality storytelling tool. (See the

graphic “A History of NYTimes.com” at http://www.nytco.com/20-years-history-of-nytimes).

V. Newspapers and Democracy

• Critics of conservative cable channel Fox News have long complained of its strong ties to

conservative and Republican politicians. This criticism increased in August 2010 when it was

revealed that News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, had donated $1 million to the

Republican Governors Association (see http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/17/fox-news-

takes-heat-for-news-corporations-gop-donation/). Although this donation is the most egregious

example to date of an organization claiming to hold public officials accountable while giving

money to their campaigns, it is far from the only example. Sheila Krumholz, executive director of

the Center for Responsive Politics, said: “This is one piece of the puzzle that the public should

following list reflects only the 2010 election cycle through August, well before the midterm elections:

News America Inc. (a subsidiary of News Corp.) made additional donations to both Republicans

and Democrats, including $50,000 to the Democratic Attorneys General Association and $65,000 to

the Republican State Leadership Committee.

$64,000 to Republican candidates, plus almost $50,000 more to Republican- and Democratic-

affiliated PACs.

Disney (parent company of ABC) gave $110,500 to Democratic candidates and $95,000 to

Republicans through its PAC, plus almost $70,000 for various political groups for both parties.

• This pattern continued in the 2012 election cycle. According to data collected by Opensecrets.org,

Comcast donated $206,056 to Barack Obama’s campaign and $20,500 to Mitt Romney’s. CBS’s

political action committee (PAC) donated $38,000 to House Republicans and $11,000 to Senate

Republicans. Disney CEO Bob Iger donated $30,800 to the DNC Services Corporation, $25,000 to

the Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee, and $10,000 to Disney’s own PAC. Time Warner

gave $10,750 to Romney, and Rupert Murdoch gave $25,000 to the National Republican

Congressional Committee.

• The 2011 phone-hacking scandal in Britain only intensified these concerns regarding News Corp.’s

influence and cozy relationship with politicians in Britain and in the United States.

MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES

NEWSPAPERS AND DEMOCRACY

What is the role of a newspaper? If journalism is supposed to be important to democracy, how much do

students learn from newspapers about the decisions that affect their everyday life? Is there something

missing in the local newspaper(s) that students in class would want to know more about so as to be more

active citizens in a democracy?

At the end of 2015, Margaret Sullivan, the “public editor” of the New York Times, wrote two columns

about the challenges of local investigative reporting. Students can read and react to her assessment. (See

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/public-editor/margaret-sullivan-new-york-times-public-editor.html

and http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/public-editor/keep-the-flame-lit-for-investigative–

journalism.html.)

NEWSPAPER ANALYSIS

In the Newspaper section, I like to bring in as wide a range of papers as possible (alternative presses, USA

Today, foreign newspapers, etc.) and have the students pass them around and note the similarities and

differences in relation to the newspaper chapter.

—Developed by Karen Pitcher, University of Iowa

COVERING INTERNATIONAL NEWS

The purpose of this Critical Process exercise is to sharpen your analytical approach to news. Work with a

partner or in a small group. Over a period of three weekdays, study the New York Times, USA Today, and

one local daily paper. Devise a chart and a descriptive scheme so that you can compare how each of the

three papers covers international news. You should consider international news to be any news story that

is predominantly about another country or about another nation’s relationship with the United States.

Exclude the sports section of the papers. Follow these steps as you work on your project:

1. Description. Count the total number of international news stories in each paper. Which foreign

cities are covered? Which countries? What are the subjects of these stories (civil wars, anti-

other words, what kind of issue or event makes another country newsworthy? Do not try to

3. Interpretation. Write a two- or three-paragraph critical interpretation of your findings. What does

your analysis mean? Why do some countries appear more frequently than others? Why do certain

kinds of stories seem to get featured?

4. Evaluation. Discuss the limitations of your study. Which paper seemed to do the best job of

covering the rest of the world? Why? Do you think newspapers give us enough information about

other people’s cultures and experiences?

5. Engagement. Either individually or with a group of students, write a letter or e-mail to your local

editor. Report your findings. In the note, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the local coverage

of international news and other cultures. Mention what the paper does well in this area, and suggest

what the paper might do better. What kind of response did you get?

THE SWEETER EXPERIENCE: PRINT VERSUS ONLINE NEWSPAPERS

Pre-Exercise Questions: New Yorker media critic Jon Katz once wrote: “There’s almost no media

experience sweeter . . . than poring over a good newspaper. In the quiet morning, with a cup of coffee—so

long as you haven’t turned on the TV, listened to the radio, or checked in online—it’s as comfortable and

personal as information gets.” How do you feel about the experience of reading a print newspaper? How

do you feel about the experience of reading a newspaper online?

1. Description. Look at the same day of the print and Web versions of a chosen newspaper. Describe

the content, style, organization, advertisements, and experience of reading both types of

newspapers.

2. Analysis. Is the Web version organized in a similar way, with the same section topics? Are the

stories the same, and are they edited in the same way? Does either version offer unique elements

that couldn’t be duplicated in the other format? Which version is more interesting or easier to read?

Is either version more information-based or more interpretive?

3. Interpretation. Does the Web version of the newspaper duplicate the print content and reading

experience? (This duplication is called shovel-casting.) How does the medium (print vs. computer-

based) affect the design, content, style, and reading experience of the newspaper? Why do we

5. Engagement. Try to make it your habit to read a newspaper every day. Experiment with a range of

different papers and formats. After a while, increase your reading load by reading both a

mainstream newspaper and an alternative news Web site (i.e., The Weekly Standard, Common

Dreams, Media Channel, or AlterNet) every day. You’ll be amazed at how much you’ll have to talk

about and how much more engaged you are with the world.

Options: Students can cover several different newspapers in groups or individually. As a discussion, this

exercise can be done in a computer lab, with a live projection of a Web newspaper (if equipment is

available). Alternatively, a printout of Web newspaper pages could serve to illustrate the comparison in

the discussion.

THE EVOLUTION OF JOURNALISM

As Media & Culture’s Chapter 8 explains, today’s journalism is quite different from the journalism of the

past. In their history, newspapers have reached extremes, from overtly partisan to superficially neutral and

from outlandishly sensational to matter-of-fact reporting. Analyze what happened along the way in the

Critical Process exercise.

2. Analysis. Divide the class into groups of two to review some of the highlights in the evolution of

3. Interpretation. Come up with some appropriate headlines for each era for a major news story. Be as

4. Evaluation. Do we still live with the legacy of previous eras of journalism? Do we still see partisan

politics in newspapers? Human interest stories? Investigative journalism? The inverted pyramid

—Developed by Matthew Smith, Wittenberg University

TRACKING RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY: A SEMESTER-

LONG CRITICAL PROCESS EXERCISE AND PAPER

In this exercise students discover the most recent developments in the industry, and they become familiar

with industry trade sources. The paper they produce is due in sections, which correspond with the steps in

the Critical Process.

1. Description. Read industry trade sources to get a sense of the main issues affecting the newspaper

industry. Look at the Web sites of industry trade associations and professional societies. (Links to

Web sites of some industry trade sources are given in the Classroom Media Sources below.) Take

notes on topics that have multiple stories or mentions in the current year. What issues or

developments in the industry have received a lot of recent attention, discussion, or commentary in

industry sources? (Focus only on information from the current year—and only from trade sources.)

2. Analysis. Look for one development or pattern that has received significant attention on trade sites

3. Interpretation. What does the trend mean for the state of the industry? Is it evolving? How? What

does it tell you about media in general at the current time? What might it say about our culture or our

society? Can your information help us interpret the role of the industry in our lives? Write up your

4. Evaluation. Is the trend “good” or “bad?” For the industry? society? culture? democracy? us? What

do you think might happen in the future?

5. Engagement. Are there any actions you can take (related to your trend and the industry)? Possibilities

Note: This exercise works well if each step of the Critical Process is due two weeks after the prior step is

due. Limiting students to only trade sources and only information from the current year helps keep them

on track. Your institution’s librarians should be able to provide students with information on how to

access industry trade sources.

CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES

LAUNCHPAD FOR MEDIA & CULTURE: http://www.macmillanhighered.com/mediaculture11e

Investigative Journalism On Screen: All the President’s Men (1976, 1:56 minutes) A brief clip from the

1976 film All the President’s Men explores the investigative journalism conducted by Bob Woodward

and Carl Bernstein during the Watergate scandal.

Newspapers and the Internet: Convergence (2009, 4:06 minutes). This video discusses some of the ways

newspapers and journalists are adapting to online delivery of news. Featuring Richard Campbell, John

and investigative reporting.

VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS

All the President’s Men (1976, 135 minutes). Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play Washington Post

investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who uncovered the shady Nixon affairs of

Watergate.

The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords (1998, 86 minutes). The first film to chronicle the history of the

black press, with coverage from 1827 through the 1960s. Distributed by California Newsreel,

877-811-7495; http://newsreel.org.

Citizen Kane (1941, 119 minutes). The story of a publishing magnate based on the life of newspaper

publisher William Randolph Hearst. Although critics excoriated this film in 1941, it was eventually

heralded as one of the century’s best films. The scene we like to show is the one, occurring in

Bernstein’s memory, where Kane woos the staff of the Chronicle (aka the New York World) over to

questions about the nature of American news media. Includes interviews with Ralph Nader, Victor

Navasky, and Ben Bagdikian. Distributed by New Day Films, 888-367-9154;

http://www.newday.com.

WEB SITES

American Press Institute: https://www.americanpressinstitute.org

Village Voice: http://www.villagevoice.com

World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers: http://www.wan-ifra.org

BLOGS

Altercation (Eric Alterman): http://www.thenation.com/blogs/eric-alterman

BuzzMachine (Jeff Jarvis): http://www.buzzmachine.com

The Dish (Andrew Sullivan): http://dish.andrewsullivan.com

InstaPundit.com (Glenn Reynolds): http://pjmedia.com/instapundit

JimRomenesko.com: http://jimromenesko.com

MediaWire (Poynter Institute Online): http://www.poynter.org/news/

PressThink (Jay Rosen): http://pressthink.org

Talking Points Memo (TPM) (Josh Marshall): http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com