197
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 journalism 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
198
2. Bennett and the New York Morning Herald
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
2. Broadcast News Embraces Interpretive Journalism
C. Literary Forms of Journalism
1. Journalism as an Art Form
2. The Attack on Journalistic Objectivity
D. Contemporary Journalism in the TV and Internet Age
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
1. African American Newspapers
2. Spanish-Language Newspapers
199
3. Asian American 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. Convergence: Newspapers Struggle in the Move to Digital.
D. New Models for Journalism.
E. Alternative Voices.
V. Newspapers and Democracy
Media Literacy and the Critical Process: Covering the News Media Business
Examining Ethics: Alternative Journalism: THE Activism of Dorothy Day and I.F. Stone
Global Village: Newspaper Readership across the Globe
LECTURE IDEAS
Preview Story: If the journalism portrayed in Spotlight is to thrive, it will take more than the
underwriting of a handful of billionaires who understand the value of good journalism to their
communities. Operating like the Spotlight team, individual communities need to think about how
200
they will be affected if newspapers continue to cut back on investigative journalism,
undermining the critical mission of the Fourth Estate. What kinds of stories will go unreported?
What types of corruption will go uninvestigated? The challenge is have people, especially our
students, examine and reflect on the impoverishing of investigative journalism as a systemic
problem that requires collective action to foster the kind of reporting that more fully informs us
and safeguards our democracy.
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
201
• 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 newspapers of the present but the newspaper philosophy
of long ago. There are things that new media can learn from old media that old media’s
forgotten: how to tell a story, how to do colorful commentary. I think newspapers, daily
newspapers, have become so corporate, so bureaucratic, so politically correct—all these
things have sucked the life out of them. The Internet can exploit that, take advantage of that,
by building a different kind of newsroom.”
• 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 the most like the New York Times and is considered the “paper of record,” resting
in the middle (or even slightly to the left) of the political spectrum and targeting an educated,
upscale audience. Libération is solidly on the left. Le Figaro is considered a “general
information” newspaper, but is on the right. France-Soir and Le Parisien are sensationalist
papers, but not on the level of the National Enquirer. Other newspapers occupy other niches
202
either on the far left or the far right. Those who choose to read a certain paper know
beforehand what its political bent is and usually read it to find 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.
During the 1990s, the alternative press made a comeback. The number of alternative newspapers
increased dramatically, with cities suddenly supporting three or four papers, whereas only one
had existed a decade earlier. Membership in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies—now
renamed the Association of Alternative Newsmedia—experienced an 80 percent increase, and
circulation figures doubled from 3 million in 1991 to 6.6 million in 2010. Alternative newspapers
generally offer 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
203
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 transmit stories, photos, and video via satellite phone, doing the work that is
typically done by a four-person crew. Although there have been other solo journalist pioneers
before him, journalist Kevin Sites has emerged as one of the most high-profile sojos to date,
independently reporting from war zones around the world.
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).
Readers and advertisers increasingly defect to the Internet.
204
The mainstream press continues trying to make serious money from the Internet, uses the
web to enrich traditional journalistic forms, and retains its professionalism. For some wonderful
examples of interactive features produced by daily newspaper sites, visit
http://interactivenarratives.org. Readers are content with part print, part web; newspapers, it
seems, are staying alive as hybrids.
At many dailies, reporters are working across platforms, writing breaking news for their
paper’s website, 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 Times, said, “I expect that in my lifetime there will be a
New York Times in print,” but he also said that it could be a “boutique” product like
vinyl. See “End Times,” a report about the New York Times on The Daily Show with Jon
Stewart for a humorous, and painful, look at the state of print in 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–to–wall meetings, or at their kids’ soccer game, they need the print [Wall
Street] Journal,” said Paul Steiger, former managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.
205
• “We’re nuts if we don’t say that we have to do things differently when people are reading
us differently.” That’s what Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times,
said in an interview about how 2016 will be “A Year of Challenges in the News
Business.” (See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/public-editor/a–year-of-challenges–
in-the-news-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 bring together “the best of the old and the best of the new,” and now
that the website is growing and turning a profit, it can afford to hire the best traditional
journalists. Moreover, traditional 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 Huffington Post,” New York Times,
September 19, 2010.)
• Nicholas Lemann, in an August 7, 2006, New Yorker article called “Amateur Hour,” noted
some interesting parallels between pamphleteering in eighteenth-century England and
blogging. The printing press made pamphleteering easily affordable, so all of a sudden
“anyone” could be a journalist. Likewise, creating a blog is infinitely more affordable than
206
any other kind of news medium. In eighteenth-century England, political unrest and
urbanization meant that people had a lot to say, and they could write pamphlets anonymously
(like blogs) if the information was controversial. 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.
• Key moments for bloggers:
• Matt Drudge, who created the proto-blog the Drudge Report in 1995, broke the Clinton-
Lewinsky scandal in 1998, very much threatening mainstream journalists by getting the
story out first.
• Bloggers kept the story of Senate Majority leader Trent Lott’s bigoted birthday salute to
Strom Thurmond in the blogosphere to the point that it became big news in the
mainstream press. Lott resigned under the intense public scrutiny.
• Bloggers doggedly researched the 2005 CBS News report about Bush’s National Guard
service and proved that the story was based on falsified documents. Their persistence in
covering this story ended with Dan Rather resigning. The episode is now referred to as
“Rathergate.”
• Talking Points Memo won a George Polk Award in 2008 for its reporting on the political
firings of eight U.S. attorneys.
• Some mainstream journalists have blamed blogs for lowering journalistic standards. The
blogosphere would argue otherwise, stating that it constitutes the “fifth estate,” monitoring
207
journalists and raising standards. Indeed, journalists have turned against bloggers in part
because journalists feel economically threatened by the blogosphere:
Journalists operate within an advertising-based, commercial media system that depends on
retaining circulation. Readers buy newspapers because they trust what they read, so a
newspaper’s entire economic structure is heavily invested in integrity and accuracy. When
journalists delay story publication, it is to avoid error. Journalists tend to shun anonymous
sources, and they usually require 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
advertising revenue. They often do not work for pay.
To keep up with the blogosphere, newspapers cut corners, which in turn can undermine the
publication’s integrity (as bloggers find and reveal these errors). Bloggers consistently expose
newspaper errors (the blogging mantra is “we can fact check your ass”), which has been draining
for the news media system both economically and emotionally.
• 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 ordinary readers. Examples of crogs include Dean Baker’s site
on economic reporting (Beat the Press, http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press) and
University of Michigan professor Juan Cole’s crog on Middle East affairs (Informed
Comment, http://www.juancole.com).
208
• Newspapers continue to explore ways to adapt and transform their operations and business
model: 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 105,000 paying customers and that an additional 100,000 print
subscribers activated their (free) digital accounts. Despite these encouraging numbers, the
online readership of the Times website actually declined overall by four million unique
visitors a month. However, some analysts say that this decline may not be as bad as it sounds,
for subscribers are more valuable to advertisers than occasional online readers because they
tend to be more engaged.
In 2009, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer went online-only, joining the ranks of papers like the Ann
Arbor News that ceased print production.
The New York Times digital paywall was a bigger success out of the gate than many critics
thought 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 entitled “Our Path Forward” at http://www.nytco.com/wp-
content/uploads/Our-Path-Forward.pdf.) The New York Times created an interactive graphic
timeline to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of NYTimes.com. The Times was first
available in 2004 through America Online; it Beta–tested a website in late 1995. In January 1996,
the paper launched NYTimes.com. By the end of 2015, the New York Times had more than one
209
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 consider when they are viewing the coverage of politics. The question
is ‘Are these companies credible when they say they are only supporting the democratic
process?’ I think that is largely ignored by the public as an adequate explanation for these big
checks.”
• An August 2010 report from CNN showed just how pervasive these conflicts of interest are
and how convoluted the contributions can be, involving more than just one media outlet or
political party. The 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.