Other penny papers soon appeared. The New York Herald, established by James Gordon Bennett in 1835, featured business Tories, political essays, and local news. Horace Greeley started the New York Tribune in 1841. In addition to reporting the news, the Tribune published book reviews and poetry and ran editorials opposing slavery and supporting women's rights. In 1848, six New York City newspapers—including the Sun, the Herald, and the Tribune—formed the Associated Press, the first major news service in the United States. The newspapers shared the cost of receiving news from telegraph agents throughout the nation and sold the reports to other papers. In the 1850's, papers from such cities as Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis sent their own correspondents to report the news from Washington, D.C. During the Civil War (1861-1865), Northern newspapers sent more than 100 reporters to cover the battles in the South. The age of sensationalism lasted from the late 1800's to the early 1900's. During this period, American news¬papers increasingly emphasized stories that dealt with crimes, disasters, and scandals. At the same time, how¬ever, the papers started reform campaigns by hunting out* and exposing corruption in business and govern-went. Magazines also began printing articles by reform writers, including Samuel Hopkins Adams, Lincoln Steffens, and Ida M. Tarbell. These writers, called muck- inkers*, published articles in such magazines as Colure's, Everybody's, and McClure's. The leading newspapers of the period included the New York Journal, published by William Randolph Hearst, and the New York World, published by Joseph Pulitzer. These two papers became strong rivals in the battle for readers and led the press in sensationalism. The competition for readers sometimes resulted in inaccurate, exaggerated reporting that came to be known as yellow journalism. The term is still used for this kind of reporting. kind of reporting. Another important publisher of the time, Edward Willis Scripps, established the first American newspaper chain. He founded or bought more than 30 papers from 1893 to 1926. Hearst also built a chain and owned 25 newspapers by 1937. Both Scripps and Hearst formed a wire service. Scripps organized United Press Associations in 1907, and Hearst established International News Service in 1909. In 1958, the services merged, forming United Press International. In 1923, Henry R. Luce and an associate, Briton Had- den, established Time, the first newsweekly. Time be¬came a leader in the trend toward interpretive report¬ing. Luce later founded a chain of specialized periodi¬cals that included Fortune, a business publication; Life, a pictorial magazine; and Sports Illustrated. The suc¬cess of Luce's magazines attracted a number of imita¬tors. In 1933, for example, Newsweek began publication to compete with Time.
|