Talk:History of American newspapers

Articles Needs...Article Stuff

Shouldn't this article actually be information culled from the references, and not references only?

MSTCrow 12:57, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes you're exactly right. I hope to do some work on it, meanwhile the bibliography might prove suggestive. Please jump in! Rjensen 14:32, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

The Cambridge History was published in 1921 and is therefore out of copyright and in public domain. We can do better but this is a start. Rjensen 13:13, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Anglocentric article .... To be renamed into "History of Anglo-american newspapers"

Article is called the history of AMERICAN newspapers. Rjensen 22:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

American reporting gone mad!

Does anyone think that devoting 18,000 words to American newspapers might be excessive, when British newspapers are dispatched in a mere 5000 words? After all, over most of the period involved (1720 to the present day) the British were the reigning super-power, and their newspapers were the most influential in the English speaking world. Despite this, the entire 17th C of the History of British newspapers is disposed of in less space than the History of American newspapers spends on 'The New England Courant' or on Benjamin Franklin's printing adventures!

Put another way, more than 3000 words are devotes to American 17th C newspapers, whereas British 17th C newspapers are covered in a little more than 300 words. Does that seem balanced to anyone, when all the technology came from Europe and the most enduring writers were British?

Similarly, the article on The Times (established 1785) is a mere 7000 words, compared with the 12,000 words devoted to The New York Times (established 1851). — Preceding unsigned comment added by A Bloke Wandering (talk • contribs) 05:31, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Is the Wikipedia now an unrepentantly Orwellian project, devoted to re-writing history from a U.S. point of view? A Bloke Wandering (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 05:20, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

• Bloke, I am sure we have more writing about Game of Thrones than any of these subjects, does that mean we are transforming Earth into Westeros? I hope not!! There is no solution but to expand what you think needs expanding, or recruiting competent people to your cause. The balance of coverage on Wikipedia will never be equal or rational except perhaps in the very long run (say 100 years). As a big fan of old newspaper history, I will note that American papers have a bit of an advantage right now in that many more free archives exist of them. E.g., anyone can access NYTimes archives through 1923, you can't do that for The Times.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 19:34, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

•Milowent The U.S. has certainly done a better job of digitising library assets than almost any other country. (Regarding The Times, the college I went to had a complete bound set, going back to The Daily Universal Register of 1785, and I know the British Library's Burney Collection also has a complete set.) However, to write an overview of British newspapers in the 17th-18th C, you don't really need access to the newspapers themselves: the card catalogue is often enough, and the British Library's card catalogue is largely (if not entirely) online. That said, I agree that more editors are needed from other countries, but given the widely-reported hostility towards new editors – a state of affairs that I have experienced myself – and the Wikipedia's reliance on "certified" (mainly U.S.) sources, that may be difficult! A Bloke Wandering (talk) 02:24, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

as early as the 1770s newspapers were more important in the United States than they were in England, and by 1800 were much more common with a larger circulations. Public opinion mattered in the United States because half or more of the men voted compared to one or two percent in Britain. Rjensen (talk) 20:26, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Rjensen Are you certain of this? The Burney Collection (1757- 1817), which I mentioned above, has more than 1200 bound sets (a million pages) of newspapers and pamphlets from the period we're discussing, so a lot was published in London and Edinburgh. While these publications may have concentrated less on the party political minutiae of the day, many contained remarkable poems and engravings, information about shipping and commerce, not to mention political discussions. While I don't have any facts to hand about the number of newspapers and pamplets published in London, compared with (say) New York and Boston, I'd be surprised if the latter two outnumbered the former by a large margin. A Bloke Wandering (talk) 02:24, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The Americans began 450 different newspapers in the 1790s alone [Mott p 113] Readex offers 580 different newspapers online from 1790-1811. If you add in the pamphlets and newspapers published before 1819 you get 72,000 titles. see Early American Imprints. Rjensen (talk) 02:41, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

US Newspaper Crisis is missing

several newspaper companies are almost bankrupt; only few may survive the current crisis which is going on for years now; [1];

A redirect labeled Newspaper Crisis in the United States leading to the right section in this article should also be generated after completion.--Zaccarias (talk) 18:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Numbers in Brackets - Just Curious

Just curious that beginning in the "Contemporary Muckrakers" section there are numbers in brackets, [1][2], and so on up to [23] I think it is. They do not link to anything, and I can't seem to find what they "reference" to. Is this article up to encyclopedic quality?  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  06:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

In researching this I found that the article addition was made in May of 2007 by a user at IP address 70.248.53.88. There was no follow-up notation that references would be added later. Since it's been nearly two years, I'm going to add the fact template to each place where superfluous bracket numbers are found. This will preserve the places where references are needed.  ^{.`</sup>^) Paine<sup>diss`cuss} (^^`.  17:22, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

The Penny Press

-content -section -price -marketing strategy Can i know all about tis of penny press? thanks

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Number of newspapers by year?

Do you know of a source that gives number of newspapers and maybe circulation by year? I'd like to see a plot supported by a table with 5 columns: year, newspapers, dailies, other, comments.

Benno C. Schmidt, Jr. (1976). Freedom of the Press vs. Public Access. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-89430-4. OL 5196075M. Wikidata Q110309111., p. 38, claims "the first regular newspaper in the American colonies" was founded in 1715. That contradicts the claim I read in this article that, "In 1704, the governor allowed The Boston News-Letter, a weekly, to be published, and it became the first continuously published newspaper in the colonies. Soon after, weekly papers began publishing in New York and Philadelphia." Sadly, there's not a reference for the sentence.

From this, I get the following:

Year	Newspapers	Dailies	Other	Comments
1715	1			First regular newspaper in the American colonies, per Schmidt (1976).
1750	14
1765	23
1776	37
1783	20			Decline due to the revolutionary war
1790	91	8	83	Rebound before the US Postal Service Act of 1792
1973	11,529	1,774	9,755	Recent number from Schmidt (1976).

We might be able to improve on this using information in the Wikipedia articles on "History of American journalism" and "Early American publishers and printers", e.g., with "the first regular newspaper in the American colonies" starting in 1704 not 1715.

However, before embarking on that, I'd prefer to look more for a better source. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 04:51, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Non-encyclopaedic article.

Nothing about this article, from the beginning to the end, makes it appropriate for an encyclopaedia. Is there not a single Wikipedic editor from the US who can discipline themselves to write better copy than this? Amandajm (talk) 15:14, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@Amandajm: Could you be more specific?

It looks sensible to me. DavidMCEddy (talk) 15:29, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

OK. Let's take it from the top:

American newspapers began as modest affairs—a sideline for printers. "Modest affairs" is journalise.

They became a political force in the campaign for American independence. "a political force" is journalise.

Following independence the first amendment... requires a comma.

By 1900 major newspapers had become profitable powerhouses of advocacy, muckraking and sensationalism... "Powerhouses" is Journalise

the average American read several newspapers per-day. This 'really' needs referencing. Who is your "average American" here? How many busy women, how many children, read several newspapers a day?

technology again morphed the nature of American journalism. What does "morphed" mean?

American journalism became housed in big media chains. What does "housed" mean? Does it refer to factories and warehouses?

This is just the introduction that I have commented on, here. It gets worse.

The first editors discovered readers loved it when they criticized the local governor; the governors discovered they could shut down the newspapers. Journalise. Rewrite it as facts.

the iconic American hero. The word "iconic" is superfluous. "American hero" relly says it all.

It was James Franklin .... who first made a news sheet something more than a garbled mass of stale items. "a garbled mass of stale items". Come now! If this is a direct quotation then that fact needs to be made clear. If it is not, then it needs rewording.

"taken from the Gazette and other Public Prints of London" some six months late. Instead, he launched a third newspaper, The New England Courant." Why is this material, whch is simply factual, graced with quotation marks, but no hint of from where it is quoted?

His associates were known as the Hell-Fire Club; they succeeded in publishing a distinctive newspaper... These two statements ought not be joined to each other with a nut and bolt. Remove the semi-colon and treat them for what they are, two statements.

the tedious conventionalities . No. This is coloured speech expressing opinion of the editor, not encyclopaedic writing.

the facetious letters of imaginary correspondents commonly fill the remainder of the Courant's first page. What does this mean, exactly? Does it mean something like "Journalists were employed to write facetious letters to the editor from imaginary correspondents." ?

Some of these papers represent native wit.... This sentence has been tacked onto the end of a series of examples of the letters by fake authors. It does not follow them in a logical manner, which destroys the sense.

Frasca argues he saw this as a service to God. Who on Earth is Fasca?

"wretched little" news sheets. Who said they were "wretched little" news sheets?

This instruction in all arts and sciences consisted of weekly extracts... Er, to which of the three afore-mention publications does this refer?

even for sheer excess of mischief. Colourful wording; non-encyclopaedic.

The series of essays called "The Busy-Body," which he wrote for Bradford's American Mercury in 1729, This begins a longish desription of pecific details in the essays, which are completely irrelevant to the general nature of an article on the History of American newspapers.

As time went on, Franklin depended less on his literary conventions, and more on his own native humor. In this there is a new spirit—not suggested to him by the fine breeding of Addison, or the bitter irony of Swift, or the stinging completeness of Pope. The brilliant little pieces Franklin wrote for his Pennsylvania Gazette have an imperishable place in American literature. Oh My! This is indeed a lovely piece of unsourced scholarly writing. It is not in the least encyclopaedic.

I'm bored with this. The article needs serious work. I have given you enough examples here to indicate why it needs reworking by someone who can write in an encyclopaedic manner.

Amandajm (talk) 19:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)