Hanson, Mass Communication 8e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
Lecture Notes
Chapter 5: The News Business: Reflection of a Democratic Society
Learning Objectives
1-1 Describe how the American press was developed during the colonial era
1-2 Identify the two types of broadcasting media that forever changed the news industry
1-4 Explain what media scholar Jay Rosen means when using the phrase “The View from
Nowhere”
1-5 Describe the economic challenges local and community news organizations are facing in the
twenty-first century
Annotated Chapter Outline
I. Inventing the Modern Press
A. First English-language newspaper: Curanto
B. Government attempts to censor and control print media
C. Media dynasties in American colonies
D. Differences between current newspapers and newspapers in colonial America
E. The Penny Press: Newspapers for the People
i. Benjamin Day and the New York Sun
ii. Supported by circulation and advertising revenues
iii. A Different Kind of Journalism
a. Independent instead of being the voice of a political party
F. A Modern Democratic Society
i. 1830s: period of intense growth for the United States
ii. Influence of press on democracy and economy
G. Pulitzer, Hearst, and the Battle for New York City
i. Pulitzer and the New York World
a. Changed the appearance of the front page
b. Brought a sense of drama and style to journalism
ii. New Readers: Immigrants and Women
a. Use of illustrations, comic strips, and color comics
Hanson, Mass Communication 8e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
b. Use of women’s pages and romantic fiction
c. Nellie Bly
iii. The Era of Yellow Journalism
a. Hearst and rivalry with Pulitzer
b. Yellow journalism: style of shocking, sensationalistic reporting
H. Magazines and the News
i. Photojournalism
a. Photojournalism: the use of photographs to portray the news in print
ii. The Muckrakers
a. Earliest examples of investigative reporting
b. Socially activist investigative journalists who published in progressive-
minded magazines
c. Samuel S. McClure and McClure’s
a. Lincoln Steffens and corruption
b. Ida Tarbell and Standard Oil
iii. Time Life
a. Henry Luce, Briton Hadden, and Time
b. Fortune
c. Life magazine
II. Broadcast News
A. News on the Radio
i. Newspapers initially attempted to restrict radios from reporting news
ii. Radio was superior in the realm in live news
B. Television News Goes 24/7
i. Began with brief coverage of 1940 Republican National Convention
ii. 1948: convention coverage, documentary programs, news and commentary
III. The News Business
A. Chains: corporations that control a significant number of newspapers or other media
outlets
Hanson, Mass Communication 8e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
B. Decrease in independent ownership
C. Until recently, newspaper publishing was one of the most profitable businesses in the
United States
i. Decline over the past three decades
D. National and Metropolitan Newspapers
i. The Wall Street Journal
a. Doing well and experiencing increases in print and digital revenues
ii. USA Today; News McNuggets
a. Struggling existence of the paper
iii. The New York Times
a. Most influential national paper
iv. The Washington Post
a. Inspired a generation of journalists in the 1970s with the coverage on
the Watergate scandal
b. Watergate scandal: the systematic sabotage and cover-up of the
Democratic presidential candidates by the White House
v. The Los Angeles Times
E. Local and Community News
i. Community press: weekly and daily newspapers serving individual communities
or suburbs instead of an entire metropolitan are
a. Consists of communities of place, ethnicity, faith, ideas, or interests
ii. Important because they publish news that readers can’t get anywhere else
IV. News Media, Identity, and Political Bias
A. Gans’s Basic Journalistic Values
i. Bias argument
a. Liberal-versus-conservative issue
ii. Eight enduring values
a. Ethnocentrism
b. Altruistic democracy
c. Responsible capitalism
iii. The role of objectivity in journalism
Hanson, Mass Communication 8e
SAGE Publishing, 2022
B. From Where Do People Get Their News?
i. Vanessa Otero’s chart of news sources
C. Fake News
i. Fake news: a popular way to describe a wide range of stories ranging from
outright fabrications to news a person simply doesn’t like
ii. Five common usages
a. Satire
b. Mistakes and fabrications
D. Patriotism and the Press
i. Dangers that journalists face
a. Jamal Khashoggi
E. The Ethnic Press
i. Ethnic papers: serve specialized communities
ii. The African American Press
a. Freedom’s Journal
a. Antiblack violence
b. Difficulties due to illiteracy and poverty
b. North Star
c. Chicago Defender
a. Designed to have a mass following
iii. The Spanish-language Press
a. Declines in circulation
b. El Nuevo Herald
V. The Future of News
A. Shifting focus to digital
B. Decline of local news
i. Importance of local news
ii. E.g. Flint water crisis
iii. Potential causes
a. Consolidation