1. Chapter 5: Newspapers

2. History
• 1st American newspaper,
“Publick Occurrences both
Foreign and Domestick”
1690, by Benjamin Harris
• critical of the king of France
• shut down after one issue
• no free press....just yet

3. • Benjamin Franklin
becomes the publisher
of The Pennsylvania
Gazette in 1729 -- the
most successful colonial
newspaper
• The political press:
openly supported a
political party or view
• First Amendment:
introduces the idea of a
free press, ratified in
1791

4. The mass newspaper
• 1830: R. Hoe & Co’s steam printing press
allows for mass production
• newspapers were still expensive: around 6
cents an issue (about the same as a pint of
whiskey at the time)
• Increased literacy (the first public school
systems were being established in 1830)

6. Penny press
• 1835: The New York Herald
• the idea was to produce papers for a penny,
so more people could afford them and would
read them
• literacy was up, the penny press papers were
successful
• The New York Times (1851) still in
production today

7. Newspapers as big
business
• A new reporting technique emerged during
the Civil War as the telegraph was being used
for reporting
• Only the most important facts were reported
first, in case of telegraph failure, at least the
important info would go through first
• The Inverted Pyramid

8. Journalistic writing
• the inverted pyramid

10. Major influences on
American journalism
• Joseph Pulitzer: immigrant
who turned newspapers into
successful publications by
stressing accuracy,
developing practices for
advertisers (price based on
circulation), and writing in a
simple style with lots of
illustrations to appeal to a
mass audience

11. Major influences on
American journalism
• E.W. Scripps: started papers
in industrial cities, featured
concisely edited news, human
interest stories, editorial
independence, and frequent
crusades for the working class
• Pioneered the idea of a
newspaper chain

12. Major influences on
American journalism
• William Randolph Hearst:
went after readers by
appealing to their emotions;
banked heavily on
sensationalism

13. Tabloid journalism
• usually “sensational” in nature, tabloids often focus on crime,
entertainment & gossip
• its beginnings stem from Yellowsex, murder, self-promotion
sensationalized reporting about
Journalism:
and human-interest stories
• Jazz Journalism: short trend in tabloids after WW1,
focused on entertainment & lifestyle issues, tabloid format
• tabloids weremaking thempaper to scanhalfcarrysize of regular
newspapers,
printed on
easy
about
&
the
around. They
were filled with many pictures and illustrations, with a simple
and short writing style

14. Newspapers today:
• splashy graphics and color
• short, easy to read stories
• many graphics & charts
• “factoids” graphical lists or bullets

15. In the digital age..
• Print newspapers are struggling to compete with
online news
• Online news is always up to date
• Online news is FREE (for the most part)
• Online news offers an unlimited newshole, day),
edition deadlines (updated throughout the
no
interactive
• Print newspapers with their own online presence:
offering additional images & video content

16. Defining features of
newspapers
• Made of of diverse content
• Conveniently packaged
• Local
• Serve as an historical record
• Perform a watchdog function in society
• Timely

17. The Newspaper Industry
• Print Dailies: a new edition at least 5 days a week, usually 7
• Circulation: subscribers of copies distributed to newsstands, vending
machines and
the number
• National Newspapers: no specialized local content. Examples: USA
Today, The Wall Street Journal & The New York Times. (NYT has a
local version just for the NY area called the Metro edition)
• Large Metropolitan Dailies: daily paper for a specific metropolitan
area
• SuburbanaDailies: metropolitan area.out by, and Batavia’s The Daily
outside of greater
a publication put
Example:
for, a smaller area
News, Regional versions of The Buffalo News, The Niagara Gazette

18. The Newspaper Industry
• Print Weeklies: publications with a new weeklyBee,
edition. Examples: Cheektowaga Times, Amherst
Buffalo Rocket
• Special-service & Minority newspapers: to eachat
well-defined audiences, with content specific
aimed
group. Example: Am-Pol Eagle targeted to the Polish
population, Artvoice targeted toward the younger, hip,
liberal population.
• Maintaining oldwebpages, adding new readers:
layouts resemble
and attracting
more 'soft news;'
readership is still on the decline

19. Organization of online
newspapers
Three main types of online news:
1.News aggregators: sites
that take info from many
sources, and compile it into a
new presentation
2.Affiliates of traditional
print outlets: the online
companion sites to print
newspapers
3.Online only: no print
counterpart (the Batavian)

20. Producing the print and
online newspaper
• All papers are divided into three departments:
• Business: selling advertising space, building the
paper's circulation and web site traffic
• Production: handles the physical and electronic
production of the paper
• News-editorial: news pages contain objective
reporting, editorial contains opinion

21. Prepublication routine
• The modern converged newsroom is a 24/7
operation
• The converged reporter: one who writes for
both print and online, shoots and edits video
to accompany stories on the web, write a
blog, etc.
• Editors arrange stories and graphics for both
print and online

22. The economics of
newspaper publishing
• Revenue: selling ad space and circulation
income (subscription and newsstand)
• Four main types of advertising revenue: local
retail, classified, national, prepaid inserts
• Expenses: news and editorial costs, printing
costs, mechanical costs, circulation and
distribution costs, general administration
costs

23. Will newspapers
survive?
• The landscape for newspapers is likely to change,
with surviving papers adopting a print/online
hybrid: featuring continually updated online
content, and specialized content in fewer print
editions
• Online delivery to new platforms: kindle, iPad,
iPhone, Droid devices
• Future employees need to not only be journalists,
but also audio and video reporters with strong
digital production skills

24. Feedback for
newspapers
• The Audit Bureau of Circulations:
organization which established ground rules
for counting circulation, provides verified
circulation reports
• Online: Neilsen/NetRatings

25. Journalism
• there are many
types of styles in
journalism
• news, features,
reviews/opinion

26. News writing
• balanced; offers
information about both
(or all) sides of the
story
• impartial; no “voice” of
the writer in news
articles
• factual

27. Feature writing
• more “casual” than a news
story
• offers an in-depth look at a
person or story
• attempts to add more life-
context to the facts

28. Reviews/Opinion
• based on fact, the
writer’s opinion is
injected
• Takes a side
• written by
reporters, editors,
readers

29. Newspaper writing terms:
• lede/lead: the first sentence of a news story. Should include the most
important facts, and be written in a way to grab the reader’s interest
• graph(s): short term for “paragraph” in news writing. Each graph
should be short, usually 1-3 sentences, between 30-50 words
• inverted pyramid: writing style that puts the most important
information first, then tells the rest of the story in order of
importance/interest
• column length: the length (in inches) a story appears in print
• white space: the literal “white space,” or areas of the page where
there is no text. White Space is desirable because it makes the article
easier to read