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W. T. Stead, the journalist and editor, is known primarily for his knight-errant crusade on behalf of women and girls in the sensational investigative articles 'The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon' (1885). The controversial success of these articles could not have been achieved without Stead's study and adoption of American journalistic techniques. Stead's importance to nineteenth-century periodicals must be informed by an understanding of Stead as a mediating force between British and American print culture. This premise is developed here through exploration of the terms 'New Journalism' and 'Americanization'. Drawing from every stage of his career including his amateur yet dynamic beginnings as an unpaid contributor to the Northern Echo, I will examine Stead's unofficial title as the father of New Journalism and the extent to which this title is directly attributable to his relationship with America, or, to use Stead's term, his Americanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes how business and editorial staff members at US newspapers rhetorically construct or deconstruct the metaphoric norm of a wall or line of separation between news and advertising functions. The study is based on 18 in-depth interviews with news and advertising professionals at middle-market US newspapers and the subsequent analysis of their rhetoric about the relationship between the news and advertising sides of their organizations. The study seeks to understand the rhetorical construction of an institutional norm and our observations are focused on the organization level. This study aids understanding of two related phenomena: how institutional norms are rhetorically constructed and how norms are rhetorically renegotiated or deconstructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thee article talks about farmer and confederate veteran Joseph Noah Rogers who started the "Rural Citizen" newspaper in Texas and his role as a key figure in the first phase of the Texas Farmers' Alliance's official involvement with journal­ism. Topics discussed include the newspaper serving as the official journal of the Texas Farmers' Alliance from 1882 to 1886 and Rogers' abandonment of the order in 1886 as the populist movement of the alliance threatened the interests of his patrons.

The stories of three female "firsts" in newspaper management are important in understanding journalism history and the role that gender played. Gloria Biggs, Carol Sutton, and Janet Chusmir were all women who rose through the ranks to lead a publication that their families did not own. While their initial achievements were lauded by the press, there was little explanation about the differences they made and the challenges they faced. Within the stories about their promotions were the questions of gender roles at a time when the women's liberation movement was gaining attention and later acceptance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is the first historical examination of how the Scripps-McRae League of US newspapers reported the uprising in Cuba in the 1890s and the Spanish-American War in Cuba in 1898. It is based on the E. W. Scripps papers at Ohio University and a close reading of all war news in the league's flagship Cleveland Press. Founder E. W. Scripps applied his conservative business model to limit expenses, which put his newspapers at a competitive disadvantage. News from the war zone was delayed by disease, military censorship, and limited independent transportation and was overshadowed by war coverage in Washington. The league's low-cost strategy pushed coverage toward observational narratives, including portrayals of the Cuban people that shifted from admiring and supportive before the war to racist deprecation afterward. Scripps-McRae war correspondents are identified and their contributions analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians label the 1844 presidential election as pivotal, heightening political and sectional tensions. Abolitionist third-party candidate James Birney was a viable alternative for antislavery voters in a campaign that featured two slaveholders. This study of antislavery newspapers during that campaign concludes that although the antislavery press claimed to be singularly focused on abolition, its editors were distracted by the election and mirrored the partisan press of that era in their treatment of the various candidates. Furthermore, Liberty Party editors and their Garrisonian counterparts addressed each other with the same level of disdain that they directed at the Whigs and Democrats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the career of Irving Brant as editorial page director and writer for the St. Louis Star and its successor in 1932, the Star-Times. Brant's career as a journalist occupied most of the first half of the twentieth century, during which time he sought to revive interest in the newspaper editorial page, from what he and others perceived as the public's growing preference for news and features. Brant found encouragement during the 1930s as Americans, in the wake of the Great Depression, turned to their newspaper for interpretation as well as news. His greatest influence occurred during the constitutional crisis of 1936–37, when he challenged the United States Supreme Court's decisions overturning major parts of the New Deal economic recovery program. In doing so, Brant harnessed the Star-Times’ editorial page in support of a new and robust liberal ideology of national authority. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Ultimately the first state to secede on the eve of the Civil War, South Carolina erupted in controversy following the 1828 passage of an act increasing duties on foreign imports for the protection of domestic industry. Most tariff opponents could agree that the measure was unconstitutional, sectionally un-equal, and oppressive to plantation states. Factions formed, however, based on recommended means of redress. This article explores partisan newspapers of South Carolina in 1829, the calendar year following the publication of John C. Calhoun's "South Carolina Exposition and Protest," which recommended nullification of the tariff. Studying newspapers of varying political stances from throughout the state during this time not only highlights early calls for secession but also explains the formation of political parties distinct to South Carolina. By extension, examining newspapers' role in the crucial political debates of 1829 contributes to an understanding of how the partisan press worked at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1690 and the end of the American Revolution, colonial newspaper printers developed a fairly standardized writing style in trying to provide readers useful, informative, and entertaining news in as little space as possible. A long history of newsletters, government publications, English newspapers, apprenticeships, and news clipping, as well as shortages of supplies and a fear of censorship, helped shape this style. Printers recognized that readers wanted to know at minimum the basic information--who, what, when, where, why, and how--of a news story, and when space permitted, a few longer pieces, usually written in chronological order, included more details, background information, and dramatic introductory sentences. Overall, however, writers based their newswriting on fundamental storytelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This longitudinal study examines what is “normal” in US newspaper foreign coverage in the twentieth century. A quantitative content analysis of three newspapers among the 40 examined by Woodward (1930) looked at two constructed weeks of each in 1927, 1947, 1977, and 1997. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to explain the findings related to 39,841 articles encompassing 246,301 paragraphs in 168 issues. Our findings support what we call Woodward's Law: putative lapses in foreign news coverage are actually the norm. Low levels of foreign news are the benchmark that should set expectations; it is the increases, which occur particularly during wars, that are exceptional. This research indicates, first, that the proportion of foreign news is relatively small in times of peace. Second, increases indicate that lamentations about the decline of foreign news during the twentieth century were overstated. Third, neither absolute-item frequency nor front-page analyses provide a complete or accurate picture. Our investigation, one of the most exhaustive ever, suggests a better outcome through examination of the entire news hole using both proportion and absolute-item frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the midst of a violent winter in New Orleans, the city was held hostage for 36 hours on January 7 and 8, 1973, when a downtown hotel was set ablaze and shots began ringing out from the roof of the high-rise. New Orleans reporters, with memories of the graphic representation of a fire that occurred five weeks prior, began producing words and images that were utilized all over the country. The present research looks at New Orleans press coverage—in particular, newspaper coverage—through the lens of Vietnam-era coverage, which had pushed the envelope in its emphasis on violent content. The researcher finds that the New Orleans-produced content was certainly graphic and dramatic, but—rather than the result of economic stresses—was a human reaction to weeks of dramatic stories that had established emotional and graphic portrayals as a new norm in the New Orleans area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the mid-1950s newspapers were the primary source of news for most Americans. By the 1970s television had taken over as the primary source of news. Through a thematic analysis of Nieman Reports and Editor & Publisher from 1954 to 1974, this study examines how newspaper industry representatives characterized television news and how they planned to remain relevant during a time of media transition. This study provides some of the historical context necessary to better understand the arguments and assumptions made by the newspaper industry today as they face the competition posed by Internet-enabled communications technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the journalistic accuracy of an anecdote concerning a group of young women assaulting men in Boston, Massachusetts in 1736. The author reflects on the historical evidence for footpads and street crime against men visiting mistresses. Despite a retraction of the story in the Boston Gazette newspaper, the story has been used by historians such as Carl Bridebaugh, W. Howland Kenney, and Steven J. Stewart. Other topics include research on urban violence, interpretation of historical evidence, and search terms.

This analysis of six influential reporting textbooks published during the first two decades of the twentieth century found that they helped create journalism's professional identity in two ways. The books and their authors, who in most cases taught journalism on the university level, identified the four basic problems of journalism for students: how to recognize news, how to assign it a value, how to collect it, and how to write it. The books, along with a teaching strategy that relied on practical exercises and examples drawn from diverse newspapers, taught students how to solve those problems. The texts and teaching methods also taught journalism students about their place in a distinct professional hierarchy where they exploited sources and readers while obeying editors and publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on a theory of change and evolution in American journalism history. It mentions three significant propositions concerning the news business in the U.S., including being regarded as an economic enterprise and the occurrence of changes that can be considered as a tension between the imperative form of business model and the dominating culture of news. Through a historical overview it relates that changes in news culture were not always driven by broader culture shifts.