Journalism
Journalism, gathering, evaluating,
and distributing facts of current interest. In journalism, reporters research
and write stories for print and electronic distribution, often with the
guidance of editors or producers. The earliest journalists produced their
stories for news sheets, circulars, newspapers, and periodicals. With
technological advances, journalism came to include other media, such as radio,
documentary or newsreel films, television, and the Internet.
The Ladies’ Home Journal
By the 19th century affordable
production costs and a demand for national advertising led to an increase in
the number of magazines available in the United States. The Ladies’ Home
Journal was founded in 1883 and circulation quickly swelled to nearly 1 million
readers. Other publications such as Life appeared at the same time. This is the
1929 cover of The Christmas Ladies’ Home Journal.
The earliest known journalistic
effort was the Acta Diurna (Daily Events) of ancient Rome. In the 1st
century bc, statesman Julius
Caesar ordered these handwritten news bulletins posted each day in the Forum, a
large public space. The first distributed news bulletins appeared in China
around 750 ad. In the mid-15th
century, wider and faster dissemination of news was made possible by the
development of movable metal type, largely credited to German printer Johannes
Gutenberg. At first, newspapers consisted of one sheet and often dealt with a
single event. Gradually a more complex product evolved.
Germany, The Netherlands, and
England produced newsletters and newsbooks of varying sizes in the 16th and
17th centuries. Journals of opinion became popular in France beginning late in
the 17th century. By the early 18th century, politicians had begun to realize
the enormous potential of newspapers in shaping public opinion. Consequently
the journalism of the period was largely political in nature; journalism was
regarded as an adjunct of politics, and each political faction had its own
newspaper. During this period the great English journalists flourished, among
them Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, and Sir Richard Steele. Also
at this time the long struggle for freedom of the press began.
In the English colonies of
North America, the first newspaper was Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and
Domestick, published in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1690; it was suppressed,
and its editor, Benjamin Harris, was imprisoned after having produced the first
issue. The trial of publisher John Peter Zenger in 1735 set a key precedent
regarding freedom of the press in America more than 50 years before the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution would secure it. Zenger was
acquitted of charges of criminal libel stemming from articles he printed that
were critical of the colonial authorities in New York, his defense being that
his reports were factual. Provisions for censorship of the press were, however,
included in the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed in 1798. After provoking a
great deal of opposition, these acts were allowed to expire. See also Trial
of John Peter Zenger.
Journalism in the 19th
century became more powerful due to the mass production methods arising from
the Industrial Revolution and to the general literacy promoted by public
education. The large numbers of people who had learned how to read demanded
reading matter, and new printing machinery made it possible to produce this
inexpensively and in great quantities. In the United States, for example,
publishers Joseph Pulitzer, Edward Wyllis Scripps, and William Randolph Hearst
established newspapers appealing to the growing populations of the big cities.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, news agencies exploited the
invention of the telegraph by using it for the rapid gathering and dissemination
of world news via wire services. These services included Reuters, based in
England; the Associated Press and United Press (later United Press
International), based in the United States; and the Canadian Press, in Canada.
At the same time, new
popular magazines were made possible by new technologies, improved
transportation, low postal rates, and the emergence of national brands of
consumer goods that required national media in which to advertise. The Ladies'
Home Journal, founded by Cyrus H. K. Curtis in 1883, soon had a circulation
of almost a million—a prodigious figure for that day. In 1897 Curtis bought for
$1,000 the old Saturday Evening Post, which rapidly achieved a
circulation in the millions. Numerous other magazines appealing to the general
reader appeared in the 20th century, including Reader's Digest, Collier's,
Life, and Look.
Over time, some general
magazines became unprofitable and ceased publication when they lost advertising
to television and to more specialized magazines, such as Sports Illustrated
and TV Guide. The newsmagazines Time, Newsweek, Maclean’s, and
U.S. News & World Report have continued to occupy an important place
in journalism, as have The Ladies’ Home Journal and other so-called
women's service magazines.
In the early 20th century
two new forms of news media appeared: newsreels and radio. By the 1920s,
newsreels in the United States alone reached about 40 million people a week in
about 18,000 film theaters, but they were displaced by television in the 1950s.
Radio news survived more successfully. Stations in the United States and Canada
started to report current events in the 1920s, borrowing most of their
information from local newspapers. They soon developed their own newsgathering
facilities.
By World War II (1939-1945),
radio had amassed a huge audience. American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt
appealed to his nation through his “fireside chats,” and radio was usually the
first to bring reports on the war to the public. Popular radio reporters and
commentators were heard by millions of people. Television later attracted much
of radio’s audience, but radio has retained a loyal following for music, news,
and talk shows.
Television became commercially
viable in the 1950s, and by the 1970s nearly every household that wanted a
television had one. (In 2000 there were 835 televisions for every 1,000 people
in the United States and 710 per 1,000 in Canada.) Network evening newscasts,
originally 15 minutes long, were extended to 30 minutes, and local news
broadcasts in major cities expanded to an hour or more. Network newscasters
gradually became national figures. Since the introduction in 1951 of the first
major documentary series, See It Now, featuring commentator Edward R.
Murrow, television documentaries and video newsmagazines such as 60 Minutes
have become important news sources. The Cable News Network (CNN), operating in
a news-only format 24 hours a day, reached 77 million U.S. and Canadian
households by 2000, and its CNN International broadcasts were relayed by satellite
to more than 200 other countries.
Television Reporter
Reporters must gather the facts about a
story through research, interviews, and first-hand observation. In this
photograph, a television news reporter conducts an on-camera interview, which
may be aired live or taped and edited for broadcast at a later time.
Largely for economic reasons,
including competition from television, the number of local daily newspapers in
the United States declined in number from 2,200 in 1910 to less than 1,500 in
2002. Canada, with just over one-tenth the population of the United States, had
about 100 daily newspapers in 2002. Weekly newspapers, which generally have
lower circulation numbers than daily newspapers, are more numerous: In 2002
more than 9,200 of them were published in the United States, and about 900 in
Canada.
A major trend affecting
newspapers in the 1980s was their incorporation into newspaper chains—ownership
of a number of newspapers by a single company. By 2000 only about a dozen
cities in the United States had separately owned competing newspapers, and in
2002 Canada had only eight cities with competing newspapers under different
ownership. Similarly, major radio and television stations, even when
independently owned, have become affiliated with networks that provide much of
their news and other program materials.
The rise of cable television
and public broadcasting has reduced uniformity of programming somewhat. By
2000, 67.7 million U.S. households and 11 million Canadian households were
wired to receive cable television. Because cable can bring in more channels
than are generally available over the air, opportunities for the expression of
diverse viewpoints increased. Public television, also called educational
television, is likewise gradually expanding its audience. In the mid-1970s it
accounted for only a small part of the time Americans spent viewing television;
by the 1990s, during the average week, public television was watched in more
than half of all homes with television sets.
New technologies continue to
bring about changes in journalism. Television satellites, for example, enable
viewers in one part of the world to witness live events occurring in another (see
Communications Satellite) and facilitate new forms of video news
distribution. Reporters can summon from data banks information that previously
would have taken them days or weeks to assemble. Wire-service copy can be set
in type automatically at a subscribing newspaper without the services of a
local editor or printer (see Office Systems).
Popular Magazines
Full-color weekly and monthly
publications such as The New Yorker, Wired, and Newsweek have huge circulations
through subscriptions and newsstand sales. Hundreds of publications targeting
general topics as well as specific interests—from doll collecting to
windsurfing—are regularly issued in the United States.
In the mid- and late 1990s
the Internet became a major force in journalism. Most of the major journalism companies—including
those involved in newspapers, periodicals, wire services, radio stations, and
television stations—began to publish material on the World Wide Web. One of the
advantages of the Internet is that readers can find continually updated information
on a variety of subjects, without waiting several hours for a new edition or
the next news broadcast. Another advantage is the ability of news organizations
to publish more in-depth information on the Internet, such as background
documents, detailed maps, or previous stories. One of the disadvantages of the
Internet is that, because information can be published almost instantly,
companies occasionally release stories without subjecting them to the same
quality controls and fact-checking processes common in other media.
Nevertheless, people have flocked to the Internet as a news source. The
percentage of Americans getting news from the Internet at least once a week
continues to grow, having surpassed 35 percent in 2000. More than 40 percent of
those obtaining news from the Internet say they go online to get more
information about stories they first encountered in other media.
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IV
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JOURNALISTS AS SOCIAL CRITICS
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Reporting the Watergate Scandal
Headlines from the Washington Post call
attention to events of the Watergate scandal, which led to the resignation of
President Richard M. Nixon in 1974. Investigation by journalists helped reveal
the extent of the president's involvement in illegal activities and illustrated
the importance of freedom of the press in a democratic society.
During the 19th century
more and more newspapers and magazines began to campaign for social and
political reforms as a method of attracting mass audiences. William Randolph
Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, while often engaging in sensationalism, also spoke
out against social evils of their day. Some of the mass magazines of the time,
such as McClure's Magazine and Everybody's, built their
reputations largely on the exposure of abuses. Newspaper and magazine
editorials exerted some influence, but even more important was the ability of
news stories to focus public attention on social problems or political
corruption. Crusading journalists, the so-called muckrakers, helped to bring
about a number of reforms—for example, antitrust legislation (see Trusts)
and the passage of pure food laws (see Pure Food and Drug Acts).
Journalists have continued to
serve as watchdogs for the public. In the 1960s television brought civil rights
demonstrations in the United States—and the brutal means sometimes used to
control them—into people’s living rooms. Reporters covering the Vietnam War
(1959-1975), having become convinced that officials were not telling the truth
about U.S. involvement there, were instrumental in turning public opinion
against the war.
In 1972 and 1973, led
by investigative reporters from the Washington Post, the press exposed
links between the administration of President Richard M. Nixon and a burglary
of the Democratic Party national headquarters (known as the Watergate scandal,
so-named for the building that housed the burglarized office). Senate hearings
on the scandal and preparations by the House of Representatives for impeachment
proceedings were carried live on television and attracted large audiences.
President Nixon resigned soon thereafter. Some investigative reporters then
turned their attention to alleged abuses by the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), charging, for instance,
that these agencies had spied illegally on American citizens.
Except during World Wars I
and II, freedom of the American press was not seriously abridged in the 20th
century. Governmental efforts to prevent publication of the Pentagon Papers (a
collection of secret documents on the Vietnam War) were struck down by the
courts in 1971 as a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States. Broadcasting stations, which must be licensed by the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) to operate, have generally been more cautious
in their criticisms of government than have newspapers.
Traditionally, reporters had learned
their skills on the job, but this began to change in the 20th century. The
first school of journalism in the United States was established at the
University of Missouri, in Columbia, Missouri, in 1908, and a bequest from
Joseph Pulitzer led to the creation in 1912 of a graduate school of journalism
at Columbia University, in New York City. More than 100 schools and departments
of journalism now exist, and reporters frequently receive some of their early
training on school or college newspapers.
Not all journalism graduates
seek employment in the news media. A substantial proportion engages in public
relations, advertising, teaching, or other communications occupations. Courses
in journalism education programs frequently include reporting, newswriting,
editing, broadcasting, new media, and related courses, as well as public
relations, advertising, marketing, and social science research dealing with the
process and effects of mass communications.
