Welcome to the newsroom

I became a journalist to come as close as possible to the heart of the world. ~Henry R. Luce (Publisher and Editor)

In journalism, our mission is to:

Get it first but first get it right. Afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

In journalism, we must get the facts right, and that means doing a lot of research. Very quickly.

Journalism has a long, colorful tradition. Journalists often risk their lives to get stories and risk jail to protect free speech.

Journalism is often called the first draft of history.

What do you think that means? Turn to your partner and discuss.

The birth of journalism

In ancient times, news was scrawled onto clay tablets.

In ancient Rome, newsletters were handwritten by slaves. In the Middle ages, wandering minstrels spread news from village to village.

Then came the invention of the printing press . 1450-ish A.D.: Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press

The invention enabled the printing of the Bible, books and pamphlets.

The first true English-language newspaper was printed in 1665.

1690: Americas first newspaper is published.

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.

Before the printing press came to this continent

Mail was the only way that settlers heard about events back home. Ships sometimes brought letters from home, but a voyage might take 6 months to a year.
The town crier would tell people of local happenings

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

Characteristics of early papers

Not timely: By the time printers printed news, it was months old Short: Paper was costly -newspapers had only 3 pages and a blank back page for the owner to write in fresh news or gossip Offered a mix: Papers contained business announcements, news from Europe, gossip, stories copied from other newspapers No distinction was made between facts, opinions, criticism, rumors

Censored: Printers were only allowed to publish newspapers if they were licensed by the British government

Slowly, but surely, colonial media grew

By 1750: there were 14 weekly papers in 6 largest colonies.

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

In the 1800s, the new technology of the steampowered 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

1835: 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.

Other Penny Press publishers

James

Gordon Bennetts 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

Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune in 1841 created the first editorial page to interpret events of the day and influence public opinion

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 Douglasss North Star informed readers of the horrors of slavery in 1847

Asian Americans were exploited and abused

The dissident press reported on these communities

Freedoms

Journal, 1827, was first to focus on African Americans (John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish)
The

Revolution, 1868, promoted womens right to vote (Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony)
Ethnic

newspapers were written in immigrants native languages

Telegraph increased communication

Invented around 1844 Newspapers used it to send news long distances
Users had to pay by the word, so they wrote very briefly

No government regulation

The telegraph also led to the creation of wire services such as The Associated Press.
The Associated Press was founded in 1846 and is credited with creating modern news style. Today, it is the one of the largest newsgathering organizations in the world.

Wire

services were born Horace Greeley out of the competition of Penny Press newspapers in New York City
Instead

of competing, 10 newspapers began to cooperate with each other and formed a news syndicate
James Gordon Bennett

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

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

War correspondents

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

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

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

Photojournalism
Photographer

Mathew Brady convinced President Lincoln to let him document the Civil War in photographs
These

photos ran in popular magazines because photos couldnt be reproduced in newspapers yet
Brady was one of the first to capture the Civil War on film

Press credentials
Members of the press had to be certified by the government and had to have a press pass to be on the scene

Yellow Journalism

By the end of 19th century, newspapers were the nations 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.

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 At first, he demanded accuracy from his reporters

Joseph Pulitzer

. . . 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

The battle raged over comic strips

Pulitzer was the first publisher to run comic strips in his paper
He and Hearst fought over the Hogans Alley comic strip, printed in yellow ink, by James Outcalt The term yellow journalism came to mean any sensational, inaccurate reporting

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 investigate conditions in insane asylums

Elizabeth Jane Cochrane, a k a Nellie Bly

. . . And may have even caused a war

Hearst offered the public rewards for news tips
He waged campaigns to solve crimes the police couldnt

By exaggerating news about events in Cuba, Hearst and Pulitzer may have caused the Spanish-American War in 1898

Hearst, a.k.a. Citizen Kane

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tzhb3U2cONs

Can you think of examples of yellow journalism today?

In print? On TV? Online?

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

The golden age of journalism

Muckraking: Investigative, socially conscious reporting takes off

Upton Sinclairs The Jungle leads to new, much more stringent food and drug laws

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 his photographs

better working conditions sanitation laws to protect people honest government regulation of big business

shadow or alternative press

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
His

paper caused the Great Migration northward

R.S. Abbott, publisher of the Chicago Defender

The public wanted professionalism

Newspapers were 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

The New York Times: The face of professionalism

Adolph

Ochs bought the New York Times in 1896. The paper was founded in 1851.
Ochs

turned it from a small bankrupt newspaper into a national giant. He printed full texts of important speeches and called the Times the paper of record.
It

He adopted the motto: All the news thats fit to print

is nicknamed The Gray Lady

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

New media forms begin to emerge

The first commercial movies began in 1895 and became popular in early 1900s.

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: FDRs fireside chats

Meanwhile, in Newspaperland

The Great Depression Newspapers go out of business

Consolidation Rise of Newspaper Chains Emergence of one-newspaper towns

1939: first TV broadcasts made

But WW II delays progress. Powerful networks dont emerge until 1950s.

 the first network news star

Edward R. Murrow started out as a radio journalist

On TV, he challenged Senator Joe McCarthys red-baiting witch hunts

Murrow reported the Battle of Britain live from the scene

He set the standard for later news anchors like Walter Cronkite

Hard to compete with TVs speed, visual appeal

Newspapers continue declining

RESPONSE:

Tighter writing Better formatting Improved design In-depth reporting

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 that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward

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

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 couldnt compete (though online newspapers did later)

The O.J. Simpson trial created a market for news 24 hours a day

 The CNN effect" describes the perceived impact of real time, 24-hour news coverage on the decision-making processes of the American government. It was coined by the continuing coverage of the first Gulf War and other crises of the early 1990s.

1995: Craigslist, a website for online advertisements, is founded. 1996: Birth of nytimes.com. 1997: Dallas Morning News breaks story on its website that suspect Timothy McVeigh confessed to the Oklahoma City bombing. 1998: Drudge Report is first to break Monica Lewinsky scandal to

2000: Google introduces AdWords. By 2008, revenues top $21 billion.

2001: Birth of Wikipedia and citizen journalism.

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.

Old media becomes new media

The

news cycle is now 24 hours for all 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 Backpack journalists do it all: write stories, shoot video, blog and tweet

The fact about old media remains

Most news and original reporting originates from traditional media: newspapers (61%), TV and radio, according to a 2010 study from Pew Research Center.

Problem is
Online sources steal it and audiences dont want to pay for it.

Meanwhile, in the old media

circulation down by more than 15 percent since 2001. 140,000 or 33 percent less newspaper jobs today than 10 years ago. 100+ less newspapers, including 2 big city dailies.
Over past 25 years, network news has lost more than 50 percent of its viewers, despite growing population. news also declining.

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.

Current problems in relevance

Celebrity

news crowds out coverage of important issues

With

24-hour coverage of unimportant trivia (What has Lindsay been arrested for now?)
.

. . total consumption of serious news is down (print, broadcast, and online)

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

They will read news online, but dont want to pay for it

Journalism history shows us that some things change: the way we deliver news.
But some things never change: gossip is news, question authority, battle between press and government.

And, most importantly, journalism is alive and well. Newspapers may die, but journalism will survive in other forms.

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

-30(30 is old journalism shorthand, signifying the end of a story.)