NEW HACKS, OLD HANDS.

This article examines newspapers' self-perceptions from a historical perspective. By comparing some of the major themes in current news press' own analysis of itself with the way newspapers presented themselves in the eighteenth century, an argument for deep-seated self-reflections of the press is made. Twenty-first-century themes, focusing on evaluation, problems and future of the British newspaper press, are compared to self-reflexive self-promoting introductory columns, appearing in virtually every new paper 200 to 300 hundred years ago. These columns offer a unique forward-looking source making them suitable for depicting some of the ways the newspapers in their first century of continuous publication presented themselves and the industry. A twenty-first-century perspective based on an Institute of Contemporary Art roundtable of newspaper insiders is juxtaposed with this historical angle. Themes include market saturation and segmentation, trust and authoritative journalism, press wars, role within democracy, influence on readers' perceptions and identity, interactivity, among others. The comparison offers a long-term view of issues facing newspapers today and points to some historical continuity in the trends in the self-perception of the news press. While far from arguing that there is an unchanged media map, the article points to some deep-rooted perceptions, almost a-historical in their nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]