Question 1: Gannett Inc took advantage of all the opportunities presented by taking the time to realize certain trends that were taking place. For example, they learned quickly how the new generation of readers had a short attention span and an increasing thirst for more information. With little time to absorb all the information, Neuharth believed that the readers faced a time crunch. This fueled his vision to make USA Today a source of information that would provide the reader with more news, within more subject categories in a less amount of time. Since well-educated Americans were constantly evolving and cared more about current event, he focused his attention on middle age Americans. USA Today was originally designed for the average American and did not cover a broad enough spectrum for the new generation. This fueled the idea to begin producing papers that contained vibrant pictures, tables and graphs to ensure they caught the eye of the new readers while keeping them interested. USA Today also developed a website USAtoday.com that presented more vibrant eye catching photos as well as producing up to the minute news that contained sound bites for the reader/listener. By offering these two innovative ideas UStoday.com grew quickly and was a success. All of these opportunities were learned because USAToday did its due diligence in receiving …show more content…
Their mission statement pronounced that its goal was to be "enlightening and enjoyable to the public, informative to national leaders and attractive to advertisers" (Ferrel, 2014). As competition began to flood the market USA Today quickly responded to stay ahead of the game. USA Today solidified the top spot through marketing innovation, promotional innovation and distribution
In chapter one, Wattenberg discusses the declining trends of Americans who regularly read newspapers between the 1960’s and present day. This can be attributed the aging patterns among generations who frequently read newspapers as well as with the use of technology rising. Reading the newspaper is a habit that either is or is not developed by the time one reaches voting age. With this, newspapers have become an older generation’s primary source of information, however, are still the best source for political matters. Younger generations tend to be more computer literate and have grown up with television and media more accessible to them than the previous generation. These trends not only reflect in American culture, but in other countries worldwide such as Italy, and Germany. Quoting a 2003 fox news interview of President Bush, Wattenberg illustrates the vast decline of newspaper consumption; even the U.S. President isn’t reading newspapers (11). Using tables throughout chapter one to illustrate the drastic differences within the last 50 years, the author exemplifies a 35% point decrease from 1957 to 2004. He speculates that perhaps young adults don’t like to read, but proves that is not the case as surveys have shown that education levels have risen overall, and access to books and reading has also increased over the years; thereby concluding that young people read, but do not typically read the newspaper. While there are several newspaper websites available, young adults do not frequently read those websites either. Although TV news information is not as detailed as it is in newspapers, young people have an ability to make up for their disinterest in newspapers by watching the news headlines (30). Chapter one makes a strong case...
With this increase, newspaper owners and editors needed new bait to reel in its subscribers. The newspaper editors wanted to replace ordinary town gossip with gossip about the latest events in the city. Therefore, in newspapers they placed the most shocking events and kept the rural minds drooling for more. As newspaper circulation grew, the large newspaper depended much less on political parties and could now even challenge them. Newspapers played on the new human interest, the concern of the wealthy with the affairs of those below them, status-wise.
I say this because there were points in which I personally could not really understand what was going on due to my lack of exposure to this problem that American journalism is facing. More specifically, terminology that was used, especially from business standpoints, and the different companies that were involved made it harder to keep up with the issue at hand. However, with a little editing and better explanation of terminology, I think that this film could extend to a wide audience that would include both digital natives and digital immigrants that are experiencing this transition within American news reporting. This paper will examine the difference between old and new journalism and its new standards, “The New York Times Effect” and its 21st century challenges, important qualifications to be a successful journalist, and the future role of journalism within American society.
Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism'." Morning Edition, 6 May 2004. Research in Context, libraries.state.ma.us/login?gwurl=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=MSIC&sw=w&u=mlin_s_stoughs&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA162002725&asid=f0d20e3c9c540a2764da9684197c1273. Accessed 5 Apr. 2017.
The work of Bernstein and Woodward inspired many young and aspiring journalists. Thanks to their work, The Washington Post grew immensely popular and became a significant rival to the New York Times (Collette). The impact of the work made many believe that journalism could really make a difference in the world. Many Americans began to make careers out of journalism and the United States saw a rise in investigative reporting (Collette). As the trust in political officials began to decline, many Americans turned toward news...
The author brings us to review the historical development of American journalism and analyse the social motivation of objective norm emergence. Some opinion of other scholar were presented and criticized. In conclusion, this article is a significant guide to American journalism research.
In “Reporting the News” by George C. Edwards III, Martin P. Wattenberg, and Robert L. Lineberry, the main idea is how the media determines what to air, where to get said stories that will air, how the media presents the news, and the medias effect on the general public. “Reporting The News” is a very strong and detailed article. The authors’ purpose is to inform the readers of what goes on in the news media. This can be inferred by the authors’ tone. The authors’ overall tone is critical of the topics that are covered. The tone can be determined by the authors’ strong use of transitions, specific examples, and phrases or words that indicate analysis. To summarize, first, the authors’ indicate that the media chooses its stories that will air
Throughout Chapter 5 of “Covering America” by Christopher Daly, there were a few newspapers that changed journalism. The St. Louis Dispatch, the World, and The Examiner played a major role in journalism and set themselves apart from other previous newspapers. Joseph Pulitzer started both the St. Louis Dispatch and the World. According to Daly, Pulitzer used his paper to, “crusade against
The Prime Minister of Spain once told an American, “The newspapers in your country seem to be more powerful than the government.” This statement was never more true than in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. The rulers of the New York newspaper empire, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, battled against one another in the ultimate test of journalism. With a real war on the horizon, these men fought to produce the most sensational stories Americans had ever read; and, as a result, they brought forth a new age in the American newspaper business, an age of fighting for the little guy, and beating back tyranny one paper at a time.
USA Today has been a widely successful company. When newspapers were the only form of read news, USA Today cornered the market in the national newspaper arena. As the digital age came about, it was time for change. New companies were emerging as leaders in the online news arena, and even established companies were moving towards online news. USA Today had to move in a different direction. They had to deal with staying ahead, or even with the competition.
The 20th century American style of news deals with objectivity. This style distinguishes factual reports from opinion columns. Reporters strive to remain neutral towards the issues they cover, and allow readers to make their judgments.3 The Washington Post?s Michael Getler describes that news that is most beneficial should be delivered in a method that is bey...
Thirty years ago, if I told you that the primary means of communicating and disseminating information would be a series of interconnected computer networks you would of thought I was watching Star Trek or reading a science fiction novel. In 2010, the future of mass media is upon us today; the Internet. The Internet is and will only grow in the future as the primary means of delivering news, information and entertainment to the vast majority of Americans. Mass media as we know it today will take new shape and form in the next few years with the convergence and migration of three legacy mediums (Television, Radio, Newspaper) into one that is based on the Internet and will replace these mediums forever changing the face of journalism, media and politics. In this paper I will attempt to explain the transition of print media to one of the internet, how the shift to an internet based media environment will impact journalism and mass media, and how this migration will benefit society and forever change the dynamic of news and politics.
Through technological advancements the television and internet now deliver the news instantly into our homes, which has inadvertently put pressure on the traditional newspaper to deliver up-to-the minute news. As technology developed swiftly over the 20th century, some academics could see the demise of the newspaper as early as the late 1960s. Marshall McLuhan (HREF1) an academic and commentator on communications technology prophesied “that printed books would become obsolete, killed off by television and other electronic information technology”. To compete with other more sophisticated electronic media systems, and to survive, newspapers joined the technological revolution and many publications went online in the fight to remain the number one information provider (Kesley 1995:16). In contrast, Kelsey (1995) states the main reaso...
In order to understand new media, one must first have a solid background of the old media. The old media traces its origins back to the “elite or partisan press [that] dominated American journalism in the early days of the republic” (Davis 29). With the advent of the penny press around 1833, the press changed its basic purpose and function from obtaining voters for its affiliated political party to making profit (Davis 29). With more available papers, individual companies competed with each other with “muckraking journalism”—investigative journalism exposing corruption—and “yellow journalism”—sensationalist journalism that completely disregarded the facts (Davis 30). The press continued to evolve its journalistic approaches and next shifted to “lapdog journalism,” r...
It’s a question that keeps floating around in the public sphere: is print advertising and newspapers dead? The world is becoming more and more fast-paced and although, our want and need for the up-to-date news and breaking stories has not changed, the way in which we consume it has. This background report investigates and explains the downfall of the newspaper and the technological shift to online news. It will also discuss differing opinions of this relevant topic of the future of journalism from a range of reliable primary sources and investigative data.