The History of
Journalism
Journalism I
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America’s First Newspapers
 The
first attempt, Publick Occurrences, was
published in Boston in 1690 by Benjamin Harris.
After only one issue, the British colonial authorities
suppressed the paper because they didn’t like
what Harris printed.
 Later, the colonies had their first continuously
published newspaper: the Boston News-Letter,
started by John Campbell in 1704. It was
published by “authority,” meaning it had the
government’s approval.
“Were it left to me to decide
whether we should have a
government without
newspapers or newspapers
without a government, I
should not hesitate
to prefer the latter.”
- Thomas Jefferson
The Birth of the Nation
 By
1775, when the Revolution began, 37
newspapers were being published. These
newspapers generally allied themselves with the
patriots, at least partly because of their anger
over the Stamp Act, which imposed a tax on
periodicals. They backed the Revolution and
printed the cries to battle that rallied the rebels.
 The First Amendment, ratified in 1791, guarantees
a free press with the words “Congress shall make
no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press.
The Birth of a Nation
 After
the Revolution, the young nation grew
rapidly, and so did the newspaper industry.
Hundreds of newspapers opened up all over
the new land.
 The first daily, the Pennsylvania Post, was
founded in 1783. The first student newspaper,
the Students Gazette, was founded even earlier
at the Friends Latin School in Pennsylvania, in
1777. This paper was handwritten by students.
The Penny Press
 Early
newspapers carried little actual news. They
were filled largely with opinions in the form of
essays, letters, and editorials, plus a few
advertisements.
 Then in 1833, Benjamin Day founded the New
York Sun, filled it with news, and sold it for only a
penny. Day’s staff covered the police beat,
wrote about tragedies and natural disasters, and
toned down the opinions. Thus was born the
“penny press.”
The Penny Press
 Because
it was so inexpensive and distributed by
street sales rather than subscription, the penny
press achieved a mass audience. With such a
large audience, advertising took on a major
role.
 Two years later James Gordon Bennett started
the New York Morning Herald. Even though it
sold for two cents, it continued the newsy ways
of the Sun.
 One of the most influential penny presses was
the New York Tribune, founded in 1841 by social
reformer Horace Greeley.
Yellow Journalism
 Yellow
journalism is a term that refers to an
unethical, irresponsible brand of journalism
involving hoaxes, altered photographs,
screaming headlines, “scoops,” frauds, and
endless self-promotions by the papers. It
reached its peak in the later 1800s.
 William Randolph Hearst, publisher of the New
York Journal, and Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of
the New York World, are the most notable
users of yellow journalism.
The Spanish-American War


Around 1895, a movement began in Cuba to seek
independence from Spain. The World and the
Journal whipped up a war climate in support of the
Cuban nationalists and tried to lure the US into the
conflict. While the press was not solely to blame for
the war, the yellow journalism of the time certainly
contributed to an atmosphere of suspicion and
conflict.
One story is about a Journal artist in Cuba who
cabled Hearst that there was no war and that he
was coming home. Hearst wired back, “Please
remain. You furnish the pictures, and I’ll furnish the
war.”
Nellie Bly



Nellie Bly was the named used by Elizabeth Cochrane,
the most famous of the women journalists beginning to
make names for themselves. Bly worked for Pulitzer’s
World and was noted for her “stunts,” stories in which she
made the news herself. She was willing to travel
anywhere to get (or create) a story.
She pretended to be ill and was committed to New
York’s Blackwell Island Asylum. Released 10 days later,
she wrote a story exposing the asylum’s poor conditions.
She set out of circle the globe in fewer than 80 days, to
test Jules Verne’s book, Around the World in Eighty Days.
She did it – in 72 days.
Muckraking


The end of yellow journalism ushered in a period
during which American newspapers developed a
significant social consciousness. Many papers
crusaded for child labor laws, promoted hospitals
and tuberculosis sanitariums, collected money for
the needy, the status of African Americans, and the
meat-packing industry.
The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 grew out of
the crusades, as did many other reforms. Ida
Tarbell’s series on “The History of the Standard Oil
Company” in McClure’s was one of the first attacks
on big business.
Minority Media



The Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s largest and
most influential African American newspapers, was
founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott, whose parents had
been slaves. The Defender became a daily in 1956 under
Abbott’s nephew, John H. Sengstacke, who built a large
chain of African American newspapers. Ebony has been
in circulation since 1945. Essence and Black Enterprise,
though newer exhibit similar staying power.
Two of the largest Hispanic American newspapers are El
Diario-La Prensa in NYC and Diario Los Americas in Miami.
The first Native American newspaper was the Cherokee
Phoenix in 1828, but it was shut down by the government
five years later for publishing ideas seen as
antigovernment. Today the independent Lakota Times is
prominent because of its famous Native American
publisher and journalist, Tim Giago.
The Advent of Radio



In 1906 Dr. Lee De Forest made improvements in the
vacuum tube that made possible the new medium of
radio. De Forest then made the first newscast in 1916,
when he broadcast presidential elections returns over a
limited area.
Regular daily programs started in Detroit in 1920. The
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) was formed in
1926, the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1927,
and the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in 1945.
The Radio Act of 1927 broadened the power of assigning
wavelengths and license applicants by creating the
Federal Radio Commission. Today’s Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) has jurisdiction,
though not censorship power, over both radio and
television. There are now over 5,000 FM stations.
The Impact of Television
 The
first television newscast took place in the
late 1940s. Early television pictures were snowy,
and transmission facilities were erratic. Both
color and sound quickly improved. By the mid
1960s, more than 60 million TV sets were in use.
Thirty years later, the number exceeded 90
million.
 Always sensitive to criticism and the possibility
of lower ratings, television news seems to be
examining its practices as never before.
The Effects of Technology


The Internet was the last great media advance of
the 20th century. It has made the transmission of
information both amazingly quick and exceedingly
efficient. Internet came into popular use in the early
1990s, when commercial services made access to it
available to anyone with a computer and modem.
The internet has changed the ways news is
presented and read. Today readers may continue
until they find a link that interests them, at which
point they leave the original story, and go looking
for related information, sometimes from a different
source.
The Future of Journalism
http://youtu.be/RuBE_dP900Y
Research Project


Pick a famous journalist or publisher from the list. If you
pick one and you end up hating them, you may
choose one more time, but then that’s it!
Research the person.




Why are they famous?
What were they responsible for?
Do they have a good or bad reputation?
You will do a public presentation about your person.
You must have some form of visual to accompany
your speech.

Examples: PowerPoint, Prezi, poster board, and more