4.2 History of Newspapers

“Truth matters more now than ever”

In 1791, the First Amendment was born. Then in 1798, the Sedition Act in reaction declared writing, printing, uttering, or publishing any false, scandalous, malicious writings against the United States government. Then, when Thomas Jefferson was elected President in 1800, he allowed the Sedition Act to lapse, claiming that he was lending himself to a great experiment. This free press experiment has continued to modern times.

David Simon, journalist and creator of the hit television series The Wire warns if fact-checkers aren’t allowed to attend local government meetings, we could see significant state and political corruption due to unaccountability. Journalists are ground zero in reporting the truths of the world. With more and more people getting their news online and through unreputable resources, what is the future world of the news industry going to look like? In the article, The Guy Who Wouldn’t Write a Hit: An Interview with David Simon, Mr. Simon mentions that he was encouraged to write what he knows and to put himself in someone else’s shoes. He says, “what we filed was so depressing that NBC refused to make it.” He was pressured to write in life’s victories and “fluff.” As he moved into the world of television, his journalism career “just kind of fell away.” I think that we will slowly rely more and more on individualistic reporting in the future, which is both good AND scary. How can we actually regulate everything that is being reported? How can we see what may or may not have been edited? At the same time, there would be more transparency.

The creation of the internet and digital publishing has changed what we consider to be truthful and reputable sources of journalism.

One area of journalism I find interesting is Interpretive Journalism. Established in the 1920’s and 1930’s, it was used to explain issues and to provide readers with a broader context for the stories they encounter. This type of journalistic reporting goes beyond the basic facts of an event or topic to provide context, analysis, and possible consequences. There is a need to separate objective news from opinions and analysis. We have a lot of this now, but I think this type of news reporting will become more popular, especially if we continue to devalue journalists.

John Oliver on Journalism: “The future of journalism could be in trouble. What is true is not always what is popular.”

4.3 Different Styles and Models of Journalism

Another area of journalism that has increased in popularity is advocacy journalism. Advocacy journalists promote a particular cause and intentionally adopt a biased, nonobjective viewpoint to do so effectively. Despite the challenges and potential pitfalls inherent to advocacy journalism, this type of journalism has increased in popularity over the past several years. In the text, Understanding Media….Newspapers, USA Today reporter Peter Johnson states, “Increasingly, journalists and talk-show hosts want to ‘own’ a niche issue or problem, find ways to solve it, and be associated with making this world a better place (Johnson, 2007).” For example, Oprah Winfrey is used as an example of having used her show as a platform for issues and concerns, which made her one of the most famous advocacy journalists. While many praise Winfrey for using her celebrity to draw attention to causes she cares about, others criticize her techniques, claiming that she uses the advocacy style for self-promotion.

“Yet despite this somewhat harsh critique, many view Winfrey as the leading example of positive advocacy journalism. Regardless of the arguments about the value and reasoning underlying her technique, Winfrey unquestionably practices a form of advocacy journalism. In fact, thanks to her vast popularity, she may be the most compelling example of an advocacy journalist working today.“

As individuals turn to the Internet to receive news for free, traditional newspapers struggle to remain competitive and hold onto their traditional readers.

Blogs have offered a new take on the traditional world of journalism. Blogs feature news and commentary entries from one or more authors. However, journalists differ on whether the act of writing a blog is acutually a form of journalism. Many old-school reporters do not believe blogging ranks as formal journalism. Unlike journalists, bloggers are not required to support their work with credible sources. This means that stories published on blogs are often neither verified nor verifiable. Despite the blurry lines of what constitutes “true” journalism—and despite the fact that bloggers are not held to the same standards as journalists—many people still seek out blogs to learn about news. Thus, blogs have affected the news journalism industry. Beyond the lack of accountability in blogging, blogs are free from the constraints of journalism in other ways that make them increasingly competitive with traditional print publications. Significantly, Internet publication allows writers to break news as soon as it occurs. Unlike a paper that publishes only once a day, the Internet is constantly accessible, and information is ready at the click of a mouse. (2010, Understanding Media…Online Journalism Redefines News)

With declining readership and increasing competition from blogs, most newspapers have embraced the culture shift and have moved to online journalism. For many papers, this has meant creating an online version of their printed paper that readers will have access to from any location, at all times of the day.

Some benefits of online writing:

As newspapers contemplate making the transition from print to online editions, several editors see the positive effect of this particular issue. N. Ram, editor in chief of The Hindu, claims, “One clear benefit online editions can provide is the scope this gives for accommodating more and longer articles…. There need be no space constraints, as in the print edition (Viswanathan, 2010).” With the endless writing space of the Internet, online writers have the freedom to explore topics more fully and to provide more detail. Online writing also provides a way for beginners to enter the professional realm of writing.

4.6 Online Journalism Redefines News

The online newspaper is, in reality, still trying to figure out what it is. Indeed, this is an uncomfortable position familiar to many online-only papers: trapped between the printed news world and the online world of blogs and unofficial websites. Despite these challenges, newspapers both in print and online continue to seek new ways to provide the public with accurate, timely information. Newspapers have long been adapting to cultural paradigm shifts, and in the face of losing print newspapers altogether, the newspaper industry continues to reinvent itself to keep up with the digital world. (Understanding Media)

Have YOU ever read a printed newspaper? Where do you get most of your news?

Works Cited:

2010, M Libraries Publishing, Understanding Media and Culture

https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/08/22/an-interview-with-david-simon/

News article of the week: