History of American Journalism

1. Prepared by
Professor Mark Grabowski

2. Think about it:
• At its heart, journalism is storytelling. So,
when you think about it, journalism has
been occurring as long as humans have
been communicating and sharing stories.
• But, anyone who’s ever played the
“telephone game” or “gossip game” knows
about the problems with oral story telling…

3. …it’s not very accurate

4. Then: letters and ballads
People realized it was a good idea to write down
stories to ensure their legacy and accuracy.

5. Speaking of Ancient Rome
• The Acta Diurna ("Daily Events") was the first news
type of publication. The daily gazette dated from 59
BC and was attributed in origin to Julius Caesar.
Handwritten copies were posted in prominent places
in Rome and in the provinces with the clear intention
of feeding the populace official information.
Additionally, the typical Acta Diurna contained news
of gladiatorial contests, astrological omens, notable
marriages, births and deaths, public appointments,
and trials and executions. Such
reading matter presaged the future
popularity of such newspaper fillers
as horoscopes, the obituary column
and the sports pages.

6. 1450-ish A.D.: Gutenberg Press

7. “Mass media” born…
The opportunity for wider dissemination
of news came with the invention of
printing by Gutenberg in the 1450s.
Soon after the development of printing,
sheets carrying news (broadsides and
pamphlets) made their appearance,
along with books, in particular the
Bible…

8. The Bible
pamphlets, broadsides and books

9. But, the first newspapers (in the sense of a
recurring publication) did not appear in
Europe until almost the 17th century:
• Mercurius Gallobelgicus (Cologne, 1592) was the
world's first periodical, issued (in Latin) semiannually
and distributed at book fairs.
• The Oxford Gazette (1665) was the first regularly
published newspaper, begun while the English court
was at Oxford to avoid the plague in London. When
the court returned to London, the Gazette came with
it.

11. 1690: America’s first newspaper
• First American
newspaper, Publick
Occurrences, Both
Foreign and Domestick,
is published in Boston.
• Reported on sex scandal
involving King of France.
• Shut down after just one
issue – no license.

12. Before the printing press
came to this continent…
Early settlers traveled far to
come to the British colonies
Mail was the only way that
settlers heard about about
current events back home
Sailing ships sometimes
brought letters from home,
The “town crier” would tell
but a voyage might take 6
people of local happenings months to a year!

13. Characteristics of early papers
Offered a mix: Papers
Not timely: Making papers was contained business
slow and laborious process. By the announcements, news from
time printers printed news, it was Europe, gossip, stories copied
months old from other newspapers
Short: Paper was costly -- No distinction was made
newspapers had only 3 pages and between facts, opinions,
a blank back page for the owner to criticism, hearsay
write in fresh news or gossip
Censored: Printers were only
allowed to publish newspapers
if they were licensed by the
British government

14. Speaking out was dangerous
• 16-year-old Ben Franklin
worked for brother James at
the New England Courant in
Boston
• In 1722, James was jailed
for mocking local officials in
his paper, and young Ben
had to take over
• James criticized religious
leaders in later years and
was banned from publishing

15. Press freedom was always under attack
In 1735 the New York Weekly
Journal called the governor of
New York a monkey
John Peter Zenger was charged
with “seditious libel” and
stood trial - he was found
innocent
This set the precedent that
newspapers should be able to
criticize the government without
fear of punishment

16. Slowly, but surely colonial media grows
• 1704: Boston News-Letter, subsidized by British
government and not very good or timely. First
continuously published newspaper
• 1719: Papers appear outside of New England.
• 1721: New England Courant seen as first “real
newspaper” because it’s first independent
American paper and has quality writing. Ben
Franklin’s brother is publisher, and partisan (anti-
royalist).
• 1750: 14 weekly papers in 6 largest colonies.

17. Newspapers booming
by eve of the American Revolution
_________________________________
Most of the larger communities
were served by at least one
newspaper; a total of 89 papers in
35 different communities were
published during the 1770s.

18. Hartford Courant
• Founded in 1764, thereby
claiming the title "America's
oldest continuously
published newspaper" and
adopting as its slogan,
"Older than the nation.”
• Today, it’s the largest daily
newspaper in Connecticut
with a circulation of about
160,000 daily and 230,000
on Sundays.

19. Early newspapers helped to
promote the Revolutionary War
The leaders of the revolt used
the press to drum up public
support for their cause
In 1776 Tom Paine wrote
Common Sense to explain the
idea of revolution in words that
uneducated people could
understand
It sold 120,000 copies and was
reprinted in newspapers

20. Why newspapers favored
the Revolution
• Most papers at the time of the American
Revolution were anti-royalist, chiefly because of
opposition to the Stamp Act taxing newsprint.
Although the act technically was on a commodity,
it was widely (and correctly) seen as an indirect
way of regulating the press, since newspapers
were required to use only paper that had received
a stamp indicating the tax had been paid;
newspapers could be suppressed by denying the
stamp or refusing to sell approved paper to the
offending publisher.

21. After independence, the
“mercantile” newspaper emerged
Business owners needed news
about ships sailing to and from
Europe
Printers hired little boats to sail out
into the harbor to meet the big
ships coming in
This way, they learned the news of
cargoes and prices first, and beat
the competition

22. So did the “partisan”
newspaper
•Early U.S. leaders fought bitterly
over how the new government
should be run
•Partisan newspapers backed
different opposing views and
attacked each other fiercely
•They mixed news and opinions
indiscriminately

23. And then came the steam engine…
The new technology of the steam-powered
cylinder press made it possible to print 4,000
copies of a newspaper in an hour
• It reduced the price
of a newspaper to 1
cent
• The “Penny Press”
was born - the first
truly mass media

24. 1835: The birth of the “modern newspaper”
• Free of government or party
control.
• Simple wording
• First organized in a modern
pattern, with city staff
covering regular beats and
spot news.
• First D.C. and foreign
correspondents.
• “Penny paper” but profitable.
• Topped 40,000 circulation
within 15 months.
• Spin-off: International Herald
Tribune – still published now.

25. • James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald in
1835 used “news enterprise”. He sent reporters
by pony express, boat or train to go out and find
news and “scoop” the competition

26. New York Tribune (1841)
• Edited by Horace Greeley, it was the first paper with a national
influence; by the eve of the Civil War, the Tribune was shipping
thousands of copies daily to other large cities - 6,000 to Chicago
alone. Other Eastern newspapers published weekly editions for
shipment to other cities, thereby developing an editorial influence
beyond the local market. Greeley was a liberal reformer who
organized a top news staff (Karl Marx was briefly his London
correspondent) and mounted frequent crusades for his pet ideas
(unionism, abstinence, abolition of capital punishment and
polygamy, westward expansion). To wit, Greeley created the first
editorial page to interpret events of the day and influence public
opinion. In 1886, the Tribune took the lead in technology
development by becoming the first newspaper to use Ottmar
Mergenthaler's linotype machine, rapidly increasing the speed and
accuracy with which type could be set.

27. Other voices wanted to be heard
In the early U.S., many groups did
not have full citizens’ rights
Native Americans were driven out
African Americans were enslaved
and forbidden to read or write
Women of all races were not
educated and could not vote
Frederick Douglass’s
North Star informed
Asian Americans were exploited
readers of the horrors and abused
of slavery in 1847

28. The “dissident press” reported
on these communities
•Freedom’s Journal, 1827, was first
to focus on African Americans (John
Russwurm and Samuel Cornish)
•The Revolution, 1868, promoted
women’s right to vote (Elizabeth
Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony)
•Ethnic newspapers were written in
immigrants’ native languages

29. 1848: The Associated Press
created modern “news style”
•Wire services were born Horace Greeley
out of the ruthless
competition of Penny
Press newspapers in New
York City
•Instead of competing, six
newspapers began to
cooperate with each other
and formed a “news
syndicate” to cover Europe James Gordon Bennett

30. Change was sweeping the U.S.
By the mid-19th
century (1800s),
advances in
technology led to
intense national
growth
These forces also
led to the expansion
of the modern news
industry

31. The steam engine brought speed
•This led to the development of fast steamships and
the birth of the railroads
•Allowed information and goods to be carried faster
and cheaper across long distances

32. Mass production created markets
•Factories were built and mass production of
consumer items began
•Industrialization also created huge audiences
for news and advertising

33. Daily newspapers are
not just a big city thing
• By late in the 1800s, even relatively small
cities like Aberdeen, Texas, had a daily
newspaper (the Aberdeen Daily News,
forerunner to today's American News)
and several weeklies, including the
Saturday Pioneer, remembered today
because of its publisher, L. Frank Baum,
who was later to write The Wizard of Oz.

34. Urban growth meant social change
•Waves of immigrants came from
Europe and Asia
•They wanted to learn English to
improve their earning power
•Newspapers enabled people to
learn to read and informed them
about their new surroundings

35. Telegraph increased communication
Invented around 1844
Newspapers used it to
send news long distances
No government regulation
Users had to pay by
the word, so they
wrote very briefly Shady telegraph operators
would take news gathered
by one newspaper and sell
it to others on the sly

36. As the 19th century progressed…
the Civil War influenced the ways news was
gathered and disseminated

37. “The Civil War influenced newspapers more than any other
event of the century.” Wally Hastings, journalism historian
Journalistic changes
brought by the Civil War:
• Inverted pyramid
• Objectivity
• Photojournalism
• Press credentials

38. War correspondents
For the first time, journalists
actually went onto battlefields to
write at-the-scene reports

39. “Inverted Pyramid” writing style
•Civil War journalists sent reports by
telegraph, so the news was lost when
wires broke or were cut
•They began sending the most
important information first, followed
by lesser details
•Writers wrote concisely, with very
short sentences and paragraphs

41. Objectivity
News syndicates sold
information about the war to
newspapers in both the
North and the South
Their reporters just collected
facts - who, what, where,
when, why and how - and
presented them without
taking a position

42. Photojournalism
•Photographer Mathew Brady
convinced President Lincoln to
let him document the Civil War in
photographs
•These photos ran in popular
magazines because photos
couldn’t be reproduced in
Brady was one of the
newspapers yet first to capture the
Civil War on film

43. Press credentials
Then as now,
sometimes spies posed
as reporters
Members of the press
had to be certified by
the government and
had to have a press
pass to be on the
scene

44. Post-War:
The
Making
of the
News
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS…
Dr. David Livingstone, medical
missionary and explorer.

45. “Yellow Journalism”
• By the end of 19th century, newspapers were the
nation’s main source of information
• As huge newspaper empires grew, so did
competition and circulation wars
• “Yellow journalism” used sensationalism as a way
to increase readership: loud headlines on sin, sex,
rumors, even fake stories.

46. It began when one publisher . . .
•Joseph Pulitzer owned the St.
Louis Post Dispatch, and took
over the New York World in
1883
•He was a crusader for hard
news, but liked to present it
with sensationalism
Joseph Pulitzer
•At first, he demanded Founder of Pulitzer Prizes
and Columbia University
accuracy from his reporters School of Journalism

47. . . . challenged another. . .
William Randolph Hearst,
owner of the San Francisco
Examiner, bought New York
Journal in 1895
He loved politics and hoped
to run for president
William Randolph Hearst Taking on Pulitzer as a rival,
his paper emphasized crime,
sex, scandals, and violence

48. The battle raged over comic strips
Pulitzer was the first publisher
to run comic strips in his paper
He and Hearst fought over the
“Hogan’s Alley” comic strip,
printed in yellow ink, by James
Outcalt
The term “yellow journalism”
came to mean any sensational,
inaccurate reporting

49. It continued over “stunt journalism”
•Both publishers used publicity
stunts to build readership:
•Pulitzer sent “Nellie Bly” up in
a hot-air balloon
•She also pretended to be out
of her mind in order to Elizabeth Jane Cochrane,
investigate conditions in a k a “Nellie Bly”
insane asylums

50. . . . And may have even caused a war
Hearst offered the public
rewards for news tips
He waged campaigns to solve
crimes the police couldn’t
By exaggerating news about
events in Cuba, Hearst and
Pulitzer may have caused the
Spanish-American War in 1898

51. Hearst, a.k.a. “Citizen Kane”
• http://youtube.com/watch?v=tzhb3U2cONs

52. 20th Century: Newspaper empires
prospered through advertising
Urban department stores
and the auto industry began
to spend millions of dollars
on advertising
Newspaper publishing
made owners wealthy
New papers sprang up
around the country

53. The “golden age” of journalism
• Muckraking:
Investigative, socially
conscious reporting
takes off
• Upton Sinclair’s The
Jungle leads to new,
much more stringent
food and drug laws

54. “The muckrakers”
Industrialization led to slums
and terrible conditions for the
poor
Journalists exposed these
problems and helped start
sweeping reforms:
Photojournalist Jacob
Riis captured slum life in • better working conditions
his photographs
• sanitation
• laws to protect people
• honest government
• regulation of big business

55. …shadow or alternative press

56. Journalists had impact
•Chicago Defender was the first
black newspaper to have a
circulation over 100,000
•Robert Sengstacke Abbott
supported the rights of African
Americans in the South and urged
them to move to Chicago
R.S. Abbott, publisher
of the Chicago
•His paper caused the “Great Defender
Migration” northward

57. The public wanted professionalism
• Newspapers remained the dominant medium for
information
• Outcry against “yellow journalism” led to demand for
greater truthfulness and accountability
• Some journalists saw their work as a profession with
a responsibility to the public
• Some newspapers adopted codes of ethics and
standards of fairness and accuracy

58. The face of professionalism
•Adolph Ochs bought the New
York Times in 1896
•He turned it from a small
bankrupt newspaper into a
national giant and established
the principle of balanced
reportage with high-level writing
•He printed full texts of important He adopted the motto: “All
speeches and called the Times the news that’s fit to print”
the “paper of record”

59. The journalist as expert
Walter Lippman became
the best-known columnist
of the century and a model
of the professional, well-
educated, expert journalist
He advised presidents and
was a very influential
figure of his time

60. On the other hand…
•In the 1920s, women got the
vote, cut their hair, and took
off their corsets
•Prohibition was under way
•The “Jazz Age” began, a time
of social upheaval, with
speak-easys, bathtub gin,
flappers, bootleggers

61. “Jazz journalism” captured the mood
The “jazz journalism” of
the 1920s sought to
reach the lowest classes
of citizens
It featured news of
gangsters, bootleggers,
grisly murders and other
crimes, sex, and celebrity
scandals

62. Tabloids began to proliferate
The New York Daily
News was an early
tabloid with short,
sensational stories and
huge photos
Just like in the tabloids of
today, many so-called
“news” stories were fake
or grossly exaggerated

63. New media forms begin to emerge
The first commercial
movies began in
1895 and became
popular in early
1900s

64. Also: Birth of broadcast news
• 1901: first wireless signal sent across
ocean by Gugliemo Marconi
• 1912: first radio broadcast
• 1920: first radio station – KDKA in
Pittsburgh
• 1926-27: national radio networks – NBC
and CBS
• 1930: FDR’s fireside chats

65. Meanwhile, in Newspaperland…
• The Great Depression
• Newspapers go out of business
• Consolidation
• Rise of Newspaper “Chains”
• Emergence of one-newspaper towns

66. Decline of newspapers
• Chicago had 8 papers in 1904, two today
• Cleveland had 3 papers in 1950s, one
today
• Philadelphia had 13 dailies in 1895, 8 in
1913, 2 now (and both recently filed for
bankruptcy)

67. 1939: first TV broadcasts made
• But WW II delays
progress.
• Powerful
networks don’t
emerge until
1950s.

68. … the first network news “star”
Edward R. Murrow started
out as a radio journalist
On TV, he challenged
Senator Joe McCarthy’s
red-baiting witch hunts
Murrow reported He set the standard for
the “Battle of
Britain” live from later news anchors like
the scene
Walter Cronkite

70. Newspapers continue declining
RESPONSE:
• Tighter writing
• Better formatting
• Improved design
• In-depth reporting

71. Investigative journalism
The Pentagon Papers
proved that the U.S.
government had lied to the
public about the Vietnam
War
In 1972, two young
Washington Post reporters
broke the Watergate story
Carl Bernstein and that led to the resignation of
Bob Woodward President Richard Nixon

72. Print news in the broadcast age
To attract a generation that
grew up with TV:
In 1983 USA Today began
publication, using very short
news stories and lots of color
Soon, daily newspapers
were all using color, photos,
and graphics to grab the
audience

73. The birth of the 24-hour news cycle
In the first Gulf War,
CNN realized that
audiences would be
eager to watch certain
kinds of news reports
any time, day or night
Paper newspapers
The O.J. Simpson trial created a
couldn’t compete
market for news 24 hours a day (though online
newspapers did later)

75. • 1995: Craigslist, a website for
online advertisements, is
founded.
• 1996: Birth of nytimes.com.
• 1997: Dallas Morning News
breaks story on its Web site
that suspect Timothy McVeigh
had confessed to the
Oklahoma City bombing.
• 1998: Drudge Report is first
news source to break the
The Internet was opened to commercial users Monica Lewinsky scandal to
in 1988, but remained a novelty for the 90s the public.

76. 2000: Google introduces AdWords. By 2008, revenues
top $21 billion.
2001: Birth of Wikipedia – and “citizen journalism”.
Nowadays, bloggers sometimes break news before
mainstream media. And Twitter is used to spread news.
2004: Popular social media websites, including Digg and
Facebook, born.
2008: Presidential election reported interactively in real
time. Poll finds that most people get news from Internet.
2009: Christian Science Monitor becomes first national
publication to cease paper edition (after 100 years) and
publish only online.

77. • In 2008 – for the first time ever – the
Internet became the primary source of
Americans.
• 48 percent said they got their news from
the Internet – more than the traditional
media (newspapers, TV and radio),
according to a poll by Zogby.
• By 2009, 56 percent were getting news
online.

78. 2012: The rise of mobile media
• The age of mobile, in which people are
connected to the web wherever they are,
has arrived in earnest. More than four in
ten American adults now own a
smartphone. One in five owns a tablet.
New cars are manufactured with internet
built in. With more mobility comes deeper
immersion into social networking.

79. Meanwhile,
in the old
media…

80. 2011 was especially unkind to newspapers
“Newsroom staffing now is at the lowest level since the
ASNE inaugurated its newsroom census in 1978.”
– Alan Mutter, UC-Berkeley journalism professor
Some notable staff cuts in 2011:
• June: 700 laid off from • November: 543 to be laid off
Gannett’s newspaper division in Michigan as Booth
Newspapers shifts to digital;
Bay Area News Group cuts 34
• September: Report: Dallas
newsroom positions
Morning News laid off 38
employees on Tuesday
• December: Media General
lays off 16 percent at Tampa
• October: New York Times
Tribune and community
offers buyouts for third time in newspapers
four years

81. Less money, more problems
• Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe
traditional journalism is out of touch and are
dissatisfied with the quality of coverage in their
communities, a 2008 poll found.

82. …the survey also found:
• While most Americans (70
percent) think journalism is
important to the quality of life in
their communities, two thirds (64
percent) are dissatisfied with the
quality of journalism in their
communities.

83. On a
related
note…

84. Current problems in accuracy
•Journalists have been shown
to be untruthful
•There are many examples of
reporters making up quotes
and stretching the truth:
•Jayson Blair of the New York
Times (top); TV anchor Dan
Rather (middle); magazine
journalist Stephen Glass,
(bottom)

85. More credibility problems
Today’s technology lets audiences “see” things
that didn’t really happen…
Impressive views of
Hurricane Sandy that were
shared by millions online,
but they’re fake

86. And….
Various major daily newspapers last year
published a photograph of four Iranian
missiles streaking heavenward; then
Little Green Footballs (significantly, a
blog and not a daily newspaper) provided
evidence that the photograph had been
faked.

87. And…
• an L.A. Times photojournalist manipulated
this photo – then got fired.

88. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0KkZafBDow&feature=fvw
• On July 19, 2010, Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign from her U.S.
Dept. of Agriculture job after blogger Andrew Breitbart posted deceptively
edited video excerpts of Sherrod's address at an event to his website --
which was amplified by Fox News and other right-wing media. However,
upon review of the full unedited video in context, White House officials and
others realized the comments were taken out of context and apologized.
Sherrod was also offered a new position.

89. Current problems in objectivity
Like the old partisan
newspapers of colonial
days, some journalists
are known for taking
hard-line positions on
issues
Many audiences can’t
Fox News, a cable news
network, gets almost as
tell the difference
many viewers as major between fact and
network newscasts – and
thrice as many as CNN opinion

90. Current problems in relevance
• Celebrity news crowds out
coverage of important issues
• With 24-hour coverage of
unimportant trivia (what will
Kanye & Kim name their
baby?)
• . . . total consumption of
serious news is down (print,
broadcast, and online)

91. Young audiences are elusive
18- to 34-year-olds are not
reading newspapers as often
older generations did
They are also not watching TV
news as often
Some say they get their news
from non-news TV shows
Is America’s
“most trusted
journalist” even
They will read news online, but
a journalist? don’t want to pay for it

92. Revenues are way
down for most media
• In 2011, newspapers’ advertising revenue declined for a
sixth consecutive year. In 2011, losses in print
advertising dollars outpaced gains in digital revenue by a
factor of roughly 10 to 1, a ratio even worse than in
2010. When circulation and advertising revenue are
combined, the newspaper industry has shrunk 43%
since 2000.
• Network TV ad revenue decreased about 5 percent in
2011 from the year before. Local television ad revenue fell
about 7 percent. Meanwhile, magazine ad revenues were flat
while radio increased by about 1 percent.

93. Is this sustainable?
• Consider that newspapers, for example,
get 90 percent of their revenues from
advertising.
• Declining revenues means more staff
cuts, eliminating costly coverage, less
pages in the paper, less editions, etc.

94. No luck with online ads
• There’s growing evidence that
conventional advertising online will never
sustain the news industry.
• A 2009 survey on online economics finds
that 79% of online news consumers say
they rarely if ever have clicked on an
online ad.

95. Traditional media have
become followers, not leaders
• In 2011, five technology companies
accounted for 68% of all online ad
revenue, and that list does not include
Amazon and Apple, which get most of
their dollars from transactions, downloads
and devices. By 2015, Facebook is
expected to account for one out of every
five digital display ads sold.

96. New York Times publisher
Arthur Sulzberger Jr.
admitted that "we will stop
printing the New York
Times sometime in the
future," but, he
said, that date
is "TBD."

97. • Uncertain economy. As Wall Street goes,
so goes ad revenues for media. Have we hit
rock bottom yet?
• “Paywalls”: WSJ, NY Times and 1/10 of
U.S. daily newspapers now charge to view
online content.
• Shift from business to non-profit model?
• Tech giants acquiring major legacy news Some predict
brands? newspapers will
cease to exist –
at least in their
• More convergence… print form.

98. “Old media” •The news cycle is now 24
hours for all media
becomes
“new media” •Most daily newspapers and
TV networks now have online
sites that combine text,
graphics, video and audio,
user interactivity
•Online information is posted
and updated continuously
•Journalists write stories,
shoot video, blog and “tweet”

99. Some $uccess
• The New York Times and L.A. Times
make enough online to support their
news operations

100. Business Insider on the NYT
“We estimate that the NYT currently
spends about $200 million a year on its
newsroom and generates about $150
million of online revenue. If the paywall is
highly successful–attracting, say, 1
million subscribers who pay $100 a year–
this will add another $100 million of online
subscription revenue … So the New York
Times isn't going anywhere.” (Sept. 8,
2010)

101. 

103. Tech giants partner w/ old media
• As a part of YouTube’s plans to become a
producer of original television content it is
funding Reuters to produce original news
shows.
• Yahoo recently signed a content
partnership with ABC News for the
network to be its near sole provider of
news video.

104. New media & old media partner
• AOL, after seeing less than stellar success
with its attempts to produce its own
original content, purchased The Huffington
Post.
• With the launch of its Social Reader,
Facebook has created partnerships with
The Washington Post, The Wall Street
Journal, The Guardian and others.

105. New & old media team up
• In March 2012 Facebook co-founder Chris
Hughes purchased the 98-year-old New
Republic magazine.

106. The concept of members of the
Citizen public "playing an active role in the
process of collecting, reporting,
journalism analyzing and disseminating news
and information.”

107. Citizen journalism
• Example: Wikipedia
• Benefits: Anyone can do it, it’s free, more
voices heard – press is no longer a device
of the elite and wealthy
• Criticisms: Because the journalists are
untrained amateurs, they often make
mistakes, aren’t objective and may
overlook important info

108. Citizen journalism teams
with traditional journalism…
In summer 2006, at The News-Press in Fort
Myers, Florida, readers from the nearby
community of Cape Coral began calling the
paper, complaining about the high prices --
as much as $28,000 in some cases -- being
charged to connect newly constructed homes
to water and sewer lines. So, the newspaper
asked public to look into it, rather than assign
investigative reporters to look into it…

109. Citizen journalism teams
with traditional journalism…
The result was that readers spontaneously
organized their own investigations: Retired
engineers analyzed blueprints, accountants
pored over balance sheets, and an inside
whistle-blower leaked documents showing
evidence of bid-rigging. In the end, the city cut
the utility fees by more than 30 percent, one
official resigned, and the fees became the driving
issue in the upcoming city council election. It was
a win-win for citizen and traditional journalists.

110. Setting the news agenda
“No longer is the media world one of a
publishers-top editor-section editor-
subeditor-journalist hierarchy. Today,
audiences are in charge and they want
direct access to, and interaction with,
journalists.”
-- Dave Morgan, founder and
chairman of SimulMedia

111. Also of note: local news
• Media outlets that focus on hyperlocal
news seem to be fairing well.
• Many community publications (i.e. small,
weekly newspapers) are growing, in fact.
• A recent National Newspaper Association
poll shows that in 2008, 86 percent of
adults read a local community newspaper
each week, compared with 83 percent in
2007 and 81 percent in 2005.

112. Hyperlocal news
• Consider, for example, that Garden City,
N.Y., a town of only about 22,000 people,
has three of its own media outlets: Garden
City News, Garden City Life and Garden
City Patch.
• AOL believes local news has so much
potential growth that it is investing $50
million in 2010 to develop 500 local news
websites. Visit patch.com.

113. The fact about “old media” remains…
•100 million Americans still read a
newspaper on an average weekday, and 150
million do on Sundays. Although print
distribution has dropped, online readership is
way up, so many newspapers are reaching
larger audiences than ever before.
• With 41,500 journalists still on the job,
newspapers remain the single largest source
of news reporting in the country.
• Most news and original reporting originates
from traditional media: newspapers (61%),
TV and radio, according to a 2010 study from
Pew Research Center.

114. Problem is…
• Online sources steal news from traditional
media and audiences don’t want to pay for
it. Only about a third of Americans (35%)
have a news destination online they would
call a “favorite,” and even among these
users only 19% said they would continue
to visit if that site put up a pay wall.

115. • An April 2009 poll
asked members of
the national news
media about the
effect the Internet
has had on
journalism. Nearly
two-thirds say the
Internet is hurting
journalism more
than it is helping.

116. • One journalist surveyed said: "The Internet has
some plusses: It has widened the circle of those
participating in the national debate. But it has
mortally wounded the financial structure of the news
business so that the cost of doing challenging,
independent reporting has become all but prohibitive
all over the world. It has blurred the line between
opinion and fact and created a dynamic in which
extreme thought flourishes while balanced judgment
is imperiled."

117. • http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4901034n

118. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50138326n

119. What changes
to journalism
will this decade
bring?

120. Is the worst over?
• Clay Shirky of New York University has
suggested that the loss of news people is
a predictable and perhaps temporary gap
in the process of creative destruction. “The
old stuff gets broken faster than the new
stuff is put in its place,” he has written.

121. Is this the start of a new era?
• Michael Schudson, the sociologist of
journalism at Columbia University, sees
the promise of “a better array of public
informational resources emerging. ” This
new ecosystem will include different
“styles” of journalism, a mix of professional
and amateur approaches and different
economic models — commercial,
nonprofit, public and “university-fueled.”

122. Change for the better?
• As Schudson notes, the news industry
became more professional, skeptical and
ethical beginning in the 1960s. Many
journalists think that sense of public good
has been overtaken by a focus on
efficiency and profit since the 1990s. In
the collapse of those ownership
structures, there is some rebirth of
community connection and public motive
in news.

123. …it’s anyone’s
guess.

124. • Journalism history shows us that some
things change: the way we deliver news.
• But some things never change: gossip is
news, press questions authority, battle
between press and government.
• And, most importantly, journalism is alive
and well. Newspapers may die, but
journalism will survive in other forms.

125. • Attitude is everything.
• Get experience now.
• Learn multimedia skills.
• Weight costs of J-school.
• Be flexible.
• Don’t fear the future.
• Visit CubReporters.org

127. Sources
• History of Journalism lecture notes by Dr. Wally Hastings,
Northern State University, South Dakota
• Several powerpoint slides from Dr. Eleanor Novek, Monmouth
University, New Jersey
• “State of the Media 2009 and 2010,” Pew Center
• Inside Reporting, Tim Harrower (McGraw-Hill, 2007)
• “Stopping the Presses for Good” video from CBS, April 2,
2009
• Shirley Sherrod news video from CBS
• Citizen Kane movie clip
• “Newspapers,” Encyclopedia Britannica
• Poynter.org
• Scripps Howard News Service’s “Future of News” project