Not everyone was enamored with news reporting. When the earliest colonies were settling into life on this continent, there were many influential leaders that spoke with disdain about the press. One such person was Governor William Berkeley of Virginia who, in , claimed, "I thank God, there are no free schools, nor printing, and I hope we shall not have, these hundred years, for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government.
God keep us from both. But this was spoken at a time before technology had altered publication, and the purpose of most municipalities and their leaders was to see to it that people conformed. It was when the first colonial news sheet appeared. Titled Boston's Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick , it was published by Benjamin Harris whose first story was disparaging of the British, causing the paper to be put out of business a short four days later!
Over the coming three quarters of a century, news sheets and publications came to be more accepted, and by the time the Revolutionary War was upon the new nation, they were all but rampant across the colonies, filled with opinions pro and con about an impending military confrontation.
Often, these news sources would simply lift information from another rival resource without thought of crediting the original writer or publisher. Unfortunately, as might be expected, this second hand news was misquoted and provided inaccurate information on a regular basis.
To be sure, newspapers, and those who wrote for them, did so as a medium of empowerment. Up to that point, information on public matters was usually scarce, handed off by word of mouth, and controlled by the news deliverer which was usually those in power. So mass printing as it was in those early days, and not to be compared to what we experience today must have been much like being handed a freedom never before realized.
Publishers could certainly be credited with having altruistic purposes for their existence, which drove them to fervently keep the public informed. But, equally as important, news gathering and publication was a new form of revenue for all involved. The reporter made money going out into the public and gathering this information, then crafting stories for the news-thirsty public.
Publishers made money off of the seemingly endless stream of newspaper buyers, and even newsboys and publication workers were kept busy at their craft. Overall, the newspaper business was a win-win situation for everyone.
In many ways, the content and format of newspapers has not changed since the 18 th century. Even in its infancy, with some notable exceptions, newspapers seemed to know intrinsically they had a responsibility to be fair and honest, and print the truth.
Early newspapers were in the habit of dividing the news into sections, such as foreign and domestic, and opinion pages were as common in the earliest news gazettes and sheets as they are today. Businesses quickly saw the advantages of advertising in newspapers, so this has been a staple of newspapers since their inception.
The newspapers of colonial America were in a position where they had to economize. The first newspapers were weeklies consisting of four pages, and advertisements were relegated to the back. Because the cost of newsprint and ink was so high, as were the machines on which the news was printed, cut, folded, and distributed, stories were condensed to provide only the most basic of information — most of which appeared in the first paragraph.
It is believed this is where the entire model for journalistic writing began. Today, it is universally accepted that the first paragraph of a news story answer the basic questions of who, what, where, when and why — a concept taught in most elementary classrooms across the country as a writing style for the beginning writer.
Interestingly, some of America's earliest founders and leaders -- George Washington, himself -- had little use for the press and claimed so vocally, stating he rarely had time to look at a gazette with all of his other interests! On the other end of the spectrum was Benjamin Franklin, a colleague and fellow separatist, who is credited today with pushing journalism and newspapers to wider acceptance, sure it was the cornerstone of a continuing free nation.
Journalism, like other professions today, was not once held in esteem or regard. It was often thought to be a practice of those who would avoid "real" work. Over time, journalists began to organize as a way of gaining recognition for their craft. The first foundation of journalists came in in England; the American Newspaper Guild was organized in , an institute meant to function as both a trade union and a professional organization.
From the beginning of newspapers, and up until about the mids, journalists entered the field as apprentices, starting out most often as copy boys and cub reporters. The first time that journalism was recognized as an area of academic study was when it was introduced at the university level in , where the University of Missouri offered it as a four-year course of study. New York's Columbia University followed suit in , offering the study of journalism as a graduate program, endowed by none other than Joseph Pulitzer himself.
The realization that news reporting was becoming extremely complex in a world that was globalizing through mass media, even if only the telegraph were the instrument of delivery, was fully acknowledged.
Newspapers and illustrated weeklies became large-scale manufacturing enterprises in the s, presided over by famous editors and publishers such as James Gordon Bennett, Horace Greeley, and Frank Leslie. Only bread and the newspaper we must have, whatever else we do without. The lust for news was the same for readers in the North and South, but the news industries of the two regions were vastly different.
The South had 70 daily newspapers in , out of nationwide, but those papers accounted for only 10 percent of the national circulation.
Only about 20 dailies survived to the end of the war, in part because the South had only a handful of paper mills and no printing-press manufacturers. In the s, American newspapers employed a few paid correspondents and writers, but it was during the Civil War that newspaper reporting came of age.
As war spread across the country, so did legions of reporters. Throughout the war, the New York Herald alone regularly had more than 40 reporters on the fields of battle. Though newspaper reporting had never been a profession that required specialized training or certification, during the war, reporters took on many of the characteristics of professionals: On the major dailies, they were salaried and given lavish expense accounts; they operated independently in the field; lived and worked together in a community of comrades; were supremely competitive yet shared the values that would become standard in journalism: eyewitness description and speed; they resisted military and government censorship; they often became celebrities; and they wrote instant books and memoirs to cash in on that fame.
The art of war reporting, then as now, required a mastery of logistics as well as of reporting and writing. Like the generals, the journalists who covered the Civil War depended on telegraphs, railroads, and horses.
Thus, dramatic accounts of reporters getting stories of great battles back to their newspapers became chapters in the lore of American journalism. For example, George W. Smalley of the New York Tribune , unable to get a telegraph connection, wrote what is usually considered the best story of the Battle of Antietam by the light of a small oil lamp on a military train from Baltimore to New York. It was part of a partnership between 12 Associated Press member newspapers and CompuServe dial-up service.
You may also like: Worst-run cities in America. He was considered to be the first openly gay journalist reporting on gay issues in a mainstream American paper. It is now one of the most widely circulated papers in the country. English journalist Michael Buerk shocked the world with his television news report on the Ethiopian famine in It sparked global interest in issues in Africa and helped inspire the idea for the Live Aid Concert the following year.
Associated Press correspondent Terry Anderson was taken hostage in while reporting in Beirut. Shiite Hezbollah militants held him in captivity until You may also like: Famous declassified government secrets.
CBS was acquired by Loews Corp. It was just one of a series of acquisitions that occurred in the media industry during the s and s. The FCC voted to overturn the Fairness Doctrine in August , citing claims that it ran counter to the First Amendment and stood to muffle healthy debate. The policy had required that broadcast license holders offer equal time for both sides of controversial matters of public importance.
It was officially removed in In its decision on Hazelwood v. The ruling made it clear that the court did not see student newspapers as public forums deserving of all free speech rights. Warner Communications, a movies and records producer, and Time Inc. The move created the largest media company in the world at the time.
The professional association focuses on fostering fair and accurate reporting on issues affecting the LGBTQ community. You may also like: 50 ways the news industry has changed in the last 50 years. In the Supreme Court decision on Masson v. Common Cause magazine founder Florence Graves uncovered a pattern of sexual misconduct charges against Sen.
Bob Packwood in Photojournalist Kevin Carter took his now-famous shot of a vulture looming near a starving child on the ground in Sudan in The photo, which earned Carter a Pulitzer Prize, prompted debate over when journalists should intervene when reporting on people in crisis. It was an early example that shows where the media industry was headed in the mids.
You may also like: Most lopsided state legislatures in America. The visually driven station features a mix of rolling news coverage and political commentary with a conservative bend.
News blogs began to pop up on the internet in They paved the path for citizen journalism within the coming years, breaking down publishing barriers in the media industry. The number of people getting their news from the internet increased substantially in the late s. This new style influenced how the event and country leaders were perceived by the public. The new entity was considered the largest media company in the world at the time.
You may also like: Can you answer these real 'Jeopardy! Reporters at the Wall Street Journal uncovered and reported on irregular accounting practices at Enron in the fall of Soon after, the company filed one of the largest bankruptcies in history.
Talking Points Memo reported on racially charged comments made by Sen. Trent Lott in December Within two weeks, the coverage prompted him to resign from his position as Senate majority leader, underlining the legitimacy of news blogs.
Blogs were becoming a more important source of war news in the early s. That same year, Back-to-Iraq 3. Within months of the presidential election, Dan Rather presented a report regarding six documents critical of President George W. It was later discovered that the documents were not authentic, resulting in weeks of harsh criticism for Rather and CBS. The controversy is now referred to as Rathergate or Memogate. More than 40 news outlets agreed to a media blackout of the event in an effort to decrease his ransom.
Sheri Fink, a ProPublica journalist, published an investigation of deadly choices made at a Hurricane Katrina-battered hospital in The Columbia Journalism Review wrote that Fink became the first reporter from a digital outlet to earn a Pulitzer.
Who at an online media company won the first Pulitzer is still up for debate, however. Most people were also receiving news from other media platforms. You may also like: How Americans feel about 30 major issues. The economy was the biggest news story of , according to the Pew Research Center. Huffington Post journalist David Wood earned a Pulitzer Prize for his part series on wounded veterans in It is often considered the first time the Pulitzer committee recognized an online-only news publication, but some media, such as Poynter, dispute this claim.
The newspapers collectively earned a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting. Once a website devoted to clickbait, BuzzFeed began tackling serious news coverage in the early s.
Named after Bill Kunkel, a video game journalist, the awards were created in response to the Gamergate controversy of The popular news site Gawker filed for bankruptcy in the summer of
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