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The press is essential for creating an informed citizenry, but its existence depends on attracting and maintaining an audience. It is unclear whether supply-side effects-including those dictated by the owners of the media-influence how the media cover politics, yet this question is essential given their abilities to set the agenda and frame issues that are covered. We examine how ownership influences media behavior by investigating the impact of RupertMurdoch's purchase of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in August 2007. We collect data on every front-page story and editorial for 27 months, and we compare the difference in political coverage between the New York Times (NYT) and WSJ using a difference-in-differences design. We show that the amount of political content in the opinion pages of the two papers were unchanged by the sale, but the WSJ's front-page coverage of politics increased markedly relative to the NYT. Similar patterns emerge when comparing the WSJ's content to USA Today and the Washington Post. Our finding highlights potential limits to journalists' ability to fulfill their supposed watchdog role in democracies without interference from owners in the boardroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cyberbullying has provoked public concern after well-publicized suicides of adolescents. This mixed-methods study investigates the social representation of these suicides. A content analysis of 184 U.S. newspaper articles on death by suicide associated with cyberbullying or aggression found that few articles adhered to guidelines suggested by the World Health Organization and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to protect against suicidal behavioral contagion. Few articles made reference to suicide or bullying prevention resources, and most suggested that the suicide had a single cause. Thematic analysis of a subset of articles found that individual deaths by suicide were used as cautionary tales to prompt attention to cyberbullying. This research suggests that newspaper coverage of these events veers from evidence-based guidelines and that more work is needed to determine how best to engage with journalists about the potential consequences of cyberbullying and suicide coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Which U.S. Supreme Court cases are deemed newsworthy enough to appear on the front page of a major newspaper? Which are covered, but do not appear on the front page, and which are not covered at all? We answer these questions using a unique data set of newspaper coverage of Supreme Court cases in four newspapers from 1953 to 2004—a data set spanning more than 6,200 observations, 25 natural courts, and the tenure of three Chief Justices. We find that the overall proportion of Supreme Court cases covered has declined over this period (from a peak of nearly 100%), although the proportion of cases on the front page has remained more constant. The results of a selection model also suggest that, in the aggregate, coverage patterns on the front page are explained by established norms of newsworthiness, but coverage elsewhere in the paper often follows different criteria. When examining different newspapers in isolation, we also find that individual papers do vary, to a limited degree, in their selection of newsworthy cases. These results are important for those concerned about citizen information about politics, the relationship between the courts and the public, and media gatekeeping. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses personal advertisements in nineteenth-century American newspapers, focusing specifically on those published in the New York Herald. It argues that these advertisements are a crucial, although heretofore largely ignored, part of the development of penny press newspapers in America. By exposing intimate relationships in public, personals offered a way for urban dwellers to connect with and understand their neighbors in a city with a rapidly growing, and increasingly anonymous, population. They also became a new kind of ‘fiction’; often romantic, highly stylized, and sometimes even ongoing, personals functioned as short stories for the newspaper audience. However, for critics, the advertisements were dangerous, threatening to lead to the ruin of young people, girls especially. Their complaints reflect a growing concern in this era about the dangers of urban life and loss of control over morality and behavior in large cities. What was most fascinating to readers—the private, apparently illicit lives of neighbors—was the same thing that most frightened moral arbiters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article focuses on the inauguration of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C. It mentions the long walk of Carter, his wife Rosalynn Carter and his family from the Capitol to the executive mansion which has garnered different comments from U.S. newspapers. It states that half of the 12 U.S. morning newspapers surveyed have displayed in their front pages the photographs of the walk but the Chicago Tribune gave a prominent space for the event.