(This section is based on Newspapers, 1775–1860 by Frank W. Scott) The political and journalistic situation made the administration organ one of the period's characteristic features. Fenno's Gazette had served the purpose for Washington and Adams; but the first great example of the type was the
National Intelligencer established in October 1800, by
Samuel Harrison Smith, to support the administration of Jefferson and of successive presidents until after Jackson it was thrown into the opposition, and
The United States Telegraph, edited by
Duff Green, became the official paper. It was replaced at the close of 1830 by a new paper,
The Globe, under the editorship of
Francis P. Blair, one of the ablest of all ante-bellum political editors, who, with
John P. Rives, conducted it until the changing standards and conditions in journalism rendered the administration organ obsolescent. The Globe was displaced in 1841 by another paper called
The National Intelligencer, which in turn gave way to
The Madisonian.
Thomas Ritchie was, in 1845, called from his long service on
The Richmond Enquirer to found, on the remains of
The Globe, the
Washington Union, to speak for the Polk administration and to reconcile the factions of democracy. Neither the Union nor its successors, which maintained the semblance of official support until 1860, ever occupied the commanding position held by the
Telegraph and
The Globe, but for forty years the administration organs had been the leaders when political journalism was dominant. Their influence was shared and increased by such political editors as M. M. Noah and
James Watson Webb of the
New York Courier and Enquirer,
Solomon Southwick of the
Albany Register, Edwin Croswell, who edited
The Argus and who, supported by
Martin Van Buren and others, formed what was known as the "
Albany Regency." The "Regency", the Richmond "Junta", which centered in the Enquirer, and the "Kitchen Cabinet" headed by the editor of
The Globe, formed one of the most powerful political and journalistic cabals that the country has ever known. Their decline, in the late thirties, coincided with great changes, both political and journalistic, and though successors arose, their kind was not again so prominent or influential. The newspaper of national scope was passing away, yielding to the influence of the telegraph and the railroad, which robbed the Washington press of its claim to prestige as the chief source of political news. At the same time, politics was losing its predominant importance. The public had many other interests, and a new spirit and type of journalism was being trained to make greater and more various demands upon the journalistic resources of its papers. The administration organ presents, but one aspect of a tendency in which political newspapers generally gained in editorial individuality, and both the papers and their editors acquired greater personal and editorial influence. The beginnings of the era of personal journalism were to be found early in the 19th century. Even before Nathan Hale had shown the way to editorial responsibility,
Thomas Ritchie, in the
Richmond Enquirer in the second decade of the century, had combined with an effective development of the established use of anonymous letters on current questions a system of editorial discussion that soon extended his reputation and the influence of his newspaper far beyond the boundaries of Virginia. Washington Barrow and the
Nashville Banner,
Amos Kendall and
The Argus of Western America,
G. W. Kendall and the
New Orleans Picayune, John M. Francis and the
Troy Times, and Charles Hammond and the
Cincinnati Gazette, to mention but a few among many, illustrate the rise of editors to individual power and prominence in the third and later decades. Notable among these political editors was
John Moncure Daniel, who just before 1850 became editor of the
Richmond Examiner and soon made it the leading newspaper of the South. Perhaps no better example need be sought of brilliant invective and literary pungency in American journalism just prior to and during the Civil War than in Daniel's contributions to the
Examiner. Though it could still be said that "too many of our gazettes are in the hands of persons destitute at once of the urbanity of gentlemen, the information of scholars, and the principles of virtue", a fact due largely to the intensity of party spirit, the profession was by no means without editors who exhibited all these qualities, and put them into American journalism.
Alexander Hamilton founded the
New York Evening Post (the present-day
New York Post) in 1801, with well-regarded
William Coleman as editor. Indeed, the problem most seriously discussed at the earliest state meetings of editors and publishers, held in the thirties, was improving the press's tone. They tried, by joint resolution, to attain a degree of editorial self-restraint, which few individual editors had yet acquired. Under the influence of
Thomas Ritchie, vigorous and unsparing political editor but always a gentleman, who presided at the first meeting of Virginia journalists, the newspaper men in one state after another resolved to "abandon the infamous practice of pampering the vilest of appetites by violating the sanctity of private life, and indulging in gross personalities and indecorous language", and to "conduct all controversies between themselves with decency, decorum, and moderation." Ritchie found in the low tone of the newspapers a reason why journalism in America did not occupy as high a place in public regard as it did in England and France.
Editorials The editorial page was assuming something of its modern form. The editorial signed with a pseudonym gradually died out, but unsigned editorial comments and leading articles did not become an established feature until after 1814, when Nathan Hale made them a characteristic of the newly established
Boston Daily Advertiser. From that time on, they grew in importance until, in the succeeding period of personal journalism, they were the most vital part of the greater papers.
Penny press In the 1830s new high speed presses allowed the cheap printing of tens of thousands of papers a day. The problem was to sell them to a mass audience, which required new business techniques (such as rapid citywide delivery) and a new style of journalism to attract new audiences. Politics, scandal, and sensationalism worked.
James Gordon Bennett Sr. (1794–1872) took the lead in New York. In a decade of unsuccessful efforts as a political journalist, he had become familiar with the growing enterprise of news gathering. He despised the upscale journalism of the day—the seriousness of tone, the phlegmatic dignity, the party affiliations, the sense of responsibility. He believed journalists were fools to think that they could best serve their own purposes by serving the politicians. As Washington correspondent for the
New York Enquirer, he wrote vivacious, gossipy prattle, full of insignificant and entertaining detail, to which he added keen characterization and deft allusions. Bennett saw a public who would not buy a serious paper at any price, who had a vast and indiscriminate curiosity better satisfied with gossip than discussion, with sensation rather than fact, who could be reached through their appetites and passions. The idea that he did much to develop rested on the success of the one-cent press established by the
New York Sun in 1833. To pay at such a price, these papers must have large circulations, be sought among the public that had not been accustomed to buy papers, and gain by printing news of the street, shop, and factory. To reach this public, Bennett began the
New York Herald, a small paper, fresh, sprightly, terse, and "newsy". "In journalistic débuts of this kind", Bennett wrote, "many talk of principle—political principle, party principle—as a sort of steel trap to catch the public. We... disdain... all principle, as it is called, all party, all politics. Our only guide shall be good, sound, practical common sense, applicable to the business and bosoms of men engaged in everyday life." According to historian Robert C Bannister, Bennett was : :A gifted and controversial editor. Bennett transformed the American newspaper. Expanding traditional coverage, the Harold provided sports reports, a society page, and advice to the lovelorn, soon permanent features of most metropolitan dailies. Bennett covered murders and sex scandals and delicious detail, faking materials when necessary.... His adroit use of telegraph, pony express, and even offshore ships to intercept European dispatches set high standards for rapid news gathering. Bannister also argues that Bennett was a leading crusader against evils he perceived: :Combining opportunism and reform, Bennett exposed fraud on Wall Street, attacked the
Bank of the United States, and generally joined the
Jacksonian assault on privilege. Reflecting a growing nativism, he published excerpts from the anti-catholic disclosures of "Maria Monk" and greeted Know-Nothingism cordially. Defending labor unions in principle, he assailed much union activity. Unable to condemn slavery outright, he opposed abolitionism. News was but a commodity, the furnishing of which was a business transaction only, which ignored the social responsibility of the press, "the grave importance of our vocation", prized of the elder journalists and of the still powerful six-cent papers.
The Herald, like the
Sun, was at once successful and was remarkably influential in altering journalistic practices. The penny press expanded its coverage to "personals"—short paid-for paragraphs by men and women seeking companionship. They revealed people's intimate relationships to a public audience and allowed city folk to connect with and understand their neighbors in an increasingly anonymous metropolis. They included heavy doses of imagination and fiction, typically romantic, highly stylized. Sometimes the same person updated the paragraph regularly, making it like a serial short story. Moralists were aghast and warned of the ruin of young girls. (Commenting on censorship of books in the 1920s, New York Mayor Jimmy Walker said he had seen many girls ruined, but never by reading.) More worrisome to the elders, they reflected a loss of community control over the city's youth, suggesting to Protestant leaders the need for agencies like the YMCA to provide wholesome companionship. Personals are still included in many papers and magazines into the 21st century.
Specialty media In a period of widespread unrest and change, many specialized forms of journalism sprang up—religious, educational, agricultural, and commercial magazines proliferated. The Catholic immigrants started arriving in large numbers and major dioceses sponsored their own newspapers. For example, between 1845 and 1861, the Diocese of St. Louis saw four newspapers come and go: the
Catholic News-Letter (1845–48),
The Shepherd of the Valley (1850–54),
The St. Louis Daily Leader (1855–56), and the
Western Banner (1858–61). The Boston
Pilot was the leading Irish Catholic paper whose news and editorials were often reprinted by other Catholic papers, the leading Irish Catholic newspaper of the period. The paper tried to balance support of the Union with its opposition to emancipation, while maintaining Irish American patriotism. Evangelical Protestants began discussing temperance, prohibition, and even broached the subject of votes for women. Abolition of slavery after 1830 became a highly inflammatory topic promoted by evangelical Protestants in the North. The leading
abolitionist newspaper was
William Lloyd Garrison's
Liberator, first issued January 1, 1831, which denounced slavery as a sin against God that had to be immediately stopped. Many abolitionist papers were excluded from the mails; their circulation was forcibly prevented in the South; in Boston, New York, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Alton, and elsewhere, editors were assaulted, offices were attacked and destroyed; rewards were offered in the South for the capture of Greeley and Garrison; in a few instances editors, like Lovejoy at Alton, lost their lives at the hands of mobs.
American Farmer American Farmer was a weekly subscription-based agricultural newspaper founded by
John Stuart Skinner in Baltimore, Maryland. Its first issue was published on April 2, 1819.
American Farmer was one of the first and earliest American agricultural newspapers. The paper was dedicated to advancements in farming techniques and spreading agricultural knowledge. One sport of particular interest was horse racing.
American Farmer contributed greatly to the popularization of the organized and intentional breeding of horses, along with detailed record keeping of horses’ pedigrees. Politics was of chief interest. The editor-owner was typically deeply involved in local party organizations and shared updated information on new developments. The paper also contained local news and presented literary columns and book excerpts that catered to an emerging middle-class, literate audience. A typical rural newspaper provided its readers with a substantial source of national and international news and political commentary, typically reprinted from metropolitan newspapers. Higher income men paid for their subscriptions; others listened to a reading of the political news at a local store or tavern. The major metropolitan daily newspapers gave regional or national circulation to weekly editions, with their contents often coed by rural papers. Most famously, the
Weekly New York Tribune was jammed with political, economic, and cultural news and features, and was a major resource for the Whig and Republican parties, as well as a window on the international world and the New York and European cultural scenes. The expansion of the
Rural Free Delivery program, which made daily newspapers more accessible in rural areas of the United States in the early twentieth century, increased support for populist parties and positions.
The press in western territories The first newspaper to be published west of the Mississippi was the Missouri Gazette. Its starting issue was published on July 12, 1808, by
Joseph Charless, an Irish printer. Swayed by
Meriweather Lewis to leave his home in Kentucky and start a new paper for the
Missouri Territory, the paper's masthead identified Charless as "Printer to the Territory". The paper published advertisements for domestic help, notices for runaway slaves, public notices, and sales of merchandise such as land plots or cattle. Newspapers like the
Gazette were instrumental in the founding of new territories and in supporting their stability as they became states. In 1849,
The Santa Fe New Mexican began publication in
Santa Fe,
New Mexico Territory. It has gone on to be the longest-running newspaper west of the Mississippi river, and the longest running paper in the
West and
Southwestern United States. It continues to be one of the most widely distributed papers in the U.S. state of
New Mexico, along with the
Albuquerque Journal (1880) and
Las Cruces Sun-News (1881). With westward expansion, other territories, like Nebraska, followed Lewis and Missouri's plan for territorial stability and founded a newspaper alongside the opening of the
Nebraska Territory in 1854. The
Nebraska Palladium was a rough newspaper that published poetry and news from the East, ran advertisements, and created a space for emerging political editorials, helping develop a sense of community and cultural influence in the territory. Produced during a time when pioneers were far removed from neighbors, these early territorial papers brought a sense of community to the territories. Because of the information gap felt by new settlers in territories such as Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, there was a mass startup of numerous newspapers.
Frank Luther Mott says, "Wherever a town sprang up, there a printer with a rude press and a 'shirt-tail-full of type' was sure to appear". Competition was intense between the large number of pop-up papers, and often many failed within a year or were bought out by rivals.
Associated Press and impact of telegraphy This idea of news and the newspaper for its own sake, the unprecedented aggressiveness in news-gathering, and the blatant methods by which the cheap papers were popularized aroused the antagonism of the older papers, but created a competition that could not be ignored. Systems of more rapid news-gathering (such as by "
pony express") and distribution quickly appeared. Sporadic attempts at co-operation in obtaining news had already been made; in 1848, the
Journal of Commerce,
Courier and Enquirer,
Tribune,
Herald,
Sun, and
Express formed the New York Associated Press to jointly obtain news for its members. Out of this idea grew other local, then state, and finally national associations. European news, which, thanks to steamship service, could now be obtained when but half as old as before, became an important feature. In the forties, several papers sent correspondents abroad, and in the next decade, this field was highly developed. The telegraph, invented in 1844, quickly linked all major cities and most minor ones to a national network that provided news in minutes or hours rather than days or weeks. It transformed the news gathering business. Telegraphic columns became a leading feature. The Associated Press (AP) became the dominant factor in the news distribution. The inland papers, in such cities as
Chicago,
Louisville,
Cincinnati,
St. Louis, and
New Orleans, used AP dispatches to become independent of papers in Washington and New York. In general, only one newspaper in each city had the Associated Press franchise, and it dominated the market for national and international news. United Press was formed in the 1880s to challenge the monopoly. The growing number of chains led each to set up its own internal dissemination system.
Great editors Out of the period of restless change in the 1830s, there emerged a few great editors whose force and ability gave them and their newspapers an influence hitherto unequalled, and made the period between 1840 and 1860 that of personal journalism. These few men not only interpreted and reflected the spirit of the time but also exerted great influence in shaping and directing public opinion. Consequently, the scope, character, and influence of newspapers were immensely widened and enriched, and rendered relatively free from the worst subjection to political control. cartoon from 1862 (note the horns) Naturally, the outstanding feature of this personal journalism was the editorial. Rescued from the slough of ponderousness into which it had fallen in its abject and uninspired party service, the editorial was revived, invigorated, and endowed with a vitality that made it the center about which all other features of the newspaper were grouped. It was individual; however large the staff of writers, the editorials were regarded as the utterance of the editor. "Greeley says" was the customary preface to quotations from the Tribune, and indeed, many editorials were signed.
James Gordon Bennett, Sr.,
Samuel Bowles (1826–78),
Horace Greeley (1811–72), and
Henry J. Raymond (1820–69) were the outstanding figures of the period. Of Bennett's influence, something has already been said; especially, he freed his paper from party control. His power was great, but it came from his genius in gathering and presenting news rather than from editorial discussion, for he had no great moral, social, or political ideals, and his influence, always lawless and uncertain, can hardly be regarded as characteristic of the period. Of the others named, and many besides, it could be said with approximate truth that their ideal was "a full presentation and a liberal discussion of all questions of public concernment, from an entirely independent position, and a faithful and impartial exhibition of all movements of interest at home and abroad." As all three were not only upright and independent, but in various measures gifted with the quality of statesmanship at once philosophical and practical, their newspapers were powerful molders of opinion at a critical period in the history of the nation. The news field was immeasurably broadened; news style was improved; interviews, newly introduced, lent the ease and freshness of dialogue and direct quotation. There was a notable improvement in the reporting of business, markets, and finance. In a few papers the literary department was conducted by staff as able as any today. A foreign news service was developed that, in intelligence, fidelity, and general excellence, reached the highest standard yet attained in American journalism. A favorite feature was the series of letters from the editor or other members of the staff who traveled and wrote about what they heard or saw. Bowles, Olmsted, Greeley, Bayard Taylor, Bennett, and many others thus observed life and conditions at home or abroad; and they wrote so entertainingly and to such purpose that the letters—those of Olmsted and Taylor, for instance—are still sources of entertainment or information. The growth of these papers led to the development of great staffs of workers that exceeded in number anything dreamed of in the preceding period. Although later journalism has far exceeded, in this respect, the time we are now considering, the scope, complexity, and excellence of our modern metropolitan journalism in all its aspects were clearly begun between 1840 and 1860.
Greeley's New York Tribune The
New York Tribune under
Horace Greeley exhibited features of the new and semi-independent personal journalism, based on political party supporters and inspired by an enthusiasm for service, one of the fine characteristics of the period. In editing the
The New Yorker, Greeley had acquired experience in literary journalism and in political news; his
Jeffersonian and
Log Cabin were popular
Whig campaign papers, which had brought him into contact with politicians and made his reputation as a journalist. He was a party man, therefore he was chosen to manage a party organ when one was needed to support the Whig administration of Harrison. The prospectus of the
New York Tribune appeared on April 3, 1841. Almost from the first, the staff that made the Tribune represented a broad catholicity of interests and tastes, in the world of thought as well as in the world of action, and a solid excellence in ability and in organization. It included
Henry J. Raymond, who later became Greeley's rival on the
Times, George M. Snow,
George William Curtis,
Charles A. Dana,
Bayard Taylor,
George Ripley, William H. Fry,
Margaret Fuller, Edmund Quincy, and Charles T. Congdon. The great popular strength of the
Tribune doubtless lay in its disinterested sympathy with all the ideals and sentiments that stirred the popular mind in the forties and fifties. "We cannot afford", Greeley wrote, "to reject unexamined any idea which proposes to improve the moral, intellectual, or social condition of mankind." He pointed out that the proper course of an editor, in contrast to that of the time-server, was to have "an ear open to the plaints of the wronged and suffering, though they can never repay advocacy, and those who mainly support newspapers will be annoyed and often exposed by it; a heart as sensitive to oppression and degradation in the next street as if they were practiced in Brazil or Japan; a pen as ready to expose and reprove the crimes whereby wealth is amassed and luxury enjoyed in our own country as if they had only been committed by Turks or Pagans in Asia some centuries ago." On the most important question of the time, the abolition of slavery, Greeley's views were intimately connected with party policy. His antipathy to slavery, based on moral and economic grounds, placed him from the first among the mildly radical reformers. But his views underwent gradual intensification. Acknowledged the most influential
Whig party editor in 1844, he had by 1850 become the most influential anti-slavery editor—the spokesman not of Whigs merely but of a great class of Northerners who were thoroughly antagonistic to slavery but who had not been satisfied with either the non-political war of Garrison or the one-plank political efforts of the
Free Soil party. This influence was greatly increased between 1850 and 1854 by some of the most vigorous and trenchant editorial writing America has ever known. The circulation of the Tribune in 1850 was, all told, a little less than sixty thousand, two-thirds of which was the Weekly. In 1854, the Weekly alone had a circulation of 112,000 copies. But even this figure is not the measure of the
Tribune's peculiar influence, "for it was pre-eminently the journal of the rural districts, and one copy did service for many readers. To the people in the Adirondack wilderness, it was a political bible, and the well-known scarcity of Democrats there was attributed to it. Yet it was as freely read by the intelligent people living on the Western Reserve of Ohio", (
James Ford Rhodes) and in Wisconsin and Illinois. The work of Greeley and his associates in these years gave a new strength and a new scope and outlook to American journalism. Greeley was a vigorous advocate of freedom of the press, especially in the 1830s and 1840s. He fought numerous libel lawsuits waged battles with the New York City postmaster, and shrugged off threats of duels and physical violence to his body. Greeley used his hard-hitting editorials to alert the public to dangers to press freedom. He would not tolerate any threats to freedom and democracy which curtailed the ability of the press to serve as a watchdog against corruption and a positive agency of social reform. After replacing Greeley,
Whitelaw Reid became the powerful long-time editor of the
Tribune. He emphasized the importance of partisan newspapers in 1879: : The true statesman and the really influential editor are those who are able to control and guide parties... There is an old question as to whether a newspaper controls public opinion or public opinion controls the newspaper. This at least is true: that editor best succeeds who best interprets the prevailing and the better tendencies of public opinion, and, who, whatever his personal views concerning it, does not get himself too far out of relations to it. He will understand that a party is not an end, but a means; will use it if it lead to his end, -- will use some other if that serve better, but will never commit the folly of attempting to reach the end without the means... Of all the puerile follies that have masqueraded before High Heaven in the guise of Reform, the most childish has been the idea that the editor could vindicate his independence only by sitting on the fence and throwing stones with impartial vigor alike at friend and foe.
Henry Raymond and the New York Times Henry Jarvis Raymond, who began his journalistic career on the
Tribune and gained further experience in editing the respectable, old-fashioned, political
Courier and Enquirer, perceived that there was an opening for a type of newspaper that should stand midway between Greeley, the moralist and reformer, and Bennett, the cynical, non-moral news-monger. He was able to interest friends in raising the hundred thousand dollars that he thought essential to the success of his enterprise. This sum is significant of the development of American daily journalism, for Greeley had started the
Tribune only ten years earlier with a capital of one thousand dollars, and Bennett had founded the
Herald with nothing at all. On this sound financial basis, Raymond began the career of
The New York Times with his business partner
George Jones on September 18, 1851. The theory of journalism announced by Raymond in the
Times marks another advance over the party principles of his predecessors. He thought that a newspaper might assume the rôle now of a party paper, now of an organ of non-partisan, independent thought, and still be regarded by the great body of its readers as steadily guided by principles of sincere public policy. An active ambition for political preferment prevented him from achieving this ideal. Although he professed conservatism only in those cases where conservatism was essential to the public good and radicalism in everything that might require radical treatment and radical reform, the spirit of opposition to the
Tribune, as well as his temperamental leanings, carried him definitely to the conservative side. He was by nature inclined to accept the established order and make the best of it. Change, if it came, should come not through radical agitation and revolution, but by cautious and gradual evolution. The world needed brushing, not harrowing. Such ideas, as he applied them to journalism, appealed to moderate men, reflected the opinions of a large and influential class somewhere between the advanced thinkers and theorists and the mass of men more likely to be swayed by passions of approbation or protest than by reason. It was the tone of the
Times that especially distinguished it from its contemporaries. In his first issue Raymond announced his purpose to write in temperate and measured language and to get into a passion as rarely as possible. "There are few things in this world which it is worth while to get angry about; and they are just the things anger will not improve." In controversy he meant to avoid abusive language. His style was gentle, candid, and decisive, and achieved its purpose by facility, clearness, and moderation rather than by powerful fervor and invective. His editorials were generally cautious, impersonal, and finished in form. With abundant self-respect and courtesy, he avoided, as one of his coadjutors said, vulgar abuse of individuals, unjust criticism, or narrow and personal ideas. He had that degree and kind of intelligence that enabled him to appreciate two principles of modern journalism—the application of social ethics to editorial conduct and the maintenance of a comprehensive spirit. As he used them, these were positive, not negative virtues. Raymond's contribution to journalism, then, was not the introduction of revolutionizing innovations in any department of the profession but a general improving and refining of its tone, a balancing of its parts, sensitizing it to discreet and cultivated popular taste. Taking
The Times of London as his model, he tried to combine in his paper the English standard of trustworthiness, stability, inclusiveness, and exclusiveness, with the energy and news initiative of the best American journalism; to preserve in it an integrity of motive and a decorum of conduct such as he possessed as a gentleman.
Late 19th century Newspapers continued to play a major political role. In rural areas, the weekly newspaper published in the county seat played a major role. In the larger cities, different factions of the party have their own papers. During the
Reconstruction era (1865–1877), leading editors increasingly turned against corruption represented by President Grant and his Republican Party. They strongly supported the third-party
Liberal Republican movement of 1872, which nominated Horace Greeley for president. The Democratic Party endorsed Greeley officially, but many Democrats could not accept the idea of voting for the man who had been their fiercest enemy for decades; he lost in a landslide. Most of the 430 Republican newspapers in the Reconstruction South were edited by
scalawags (Southern born white men) – only 20 percent were edited by
carpetbaggers (recent arrivals from the North who formed the opposing faction in the Republican Party. White businessmen generally boycotted Republican papers, which survived through government patronage.) Newspapers were a major growth industry in the late nineteenth century. The number of daily papers grew from 971 to 2226, 1880 to 1900. Weekly newspapers were published in smaller towns, especially county seats, or for German, Swedish and other immigrant subscribers. They grew from 9,000 to 14,000, and by 1900 the United States published more than half of the newspapers in the world, with two copies per capita. Out on the frontier, the first need for a boom town was a newspaper. The new states of North and South Dakota by 1900 had 25 daily papers, and 315 weeklies. Oklahoma was still not a state, but it could boast of nine dailies and nearly a hundred weeklies. In the largest cities the newspapers competed fiercely, using newsboys to hawk copies and carriers to serve subscribers. Financially, the major papers depended on advertising, which paid in proportion to the circulation base. By the 1890s in New York City, especially during the Spanish–American War, circulations reached 1 million a day for Pulitzer's
World and Hearst's
Journal. While smaller papers relied on loyal Republican or Democratic readers who appreciated the intense partisanship of the editorials, the big-city papers realized they would lose half their potential audience by excessive partisanship, so they took a more ambiguous position, except at election time. Journalism was an attractive, but low-paid profession that drew ambitious young men starting their careers, and a few women. Editors were too busy condensing and rewriting and meeting deadlines to provide much tutelage. Reporters learned the craft by reading and discussing news stories among themselves, and following the tips and suggestions of more experienced colleagues. Reporters developed a personal rather than a professional code of ethics, and implemented their own work rules. Falsification was never allowed but increasingly the editors demanded sensationalistic perspectives, and juicy tidbits regardless of the news value. After the Civil War, there were several transitions in the newspaper industry. Many of the main founders of the modern press died, including Greeley, Raymond, Bennett, Bowles. and Bryant. Their successors continued the basic policies and approaches, but were less innovative. The civil war put a premium on news reporting, rather than editorials, and the news columns became increasingly important, with speed of the essence as multiple newspapers competed on the city streets for customers. The major papers issued numerous editions the day each with blaring headlines to capture attention. Reporting became more prestigious. There was no newspaper that exerted the national influence of Greeley's
New York Tribune. Western cities, developed influential newspapers of their own in Chicago, San Francisco and St. Louis; the Southern press went into eclipse as the region lost its political influence and talented young journalists headed North for their careers. The Associated Press became increasingly important and efficient, producing a vast quantity of reasonably accurate, factual reporting on state and national events that editors used to service the escalating demand for news. Circulation growth was facilitated by new technology, such as the stereotype, by which 10 or more high-speed presses could print the same pages. After 1865 there was a heavy migration to the western territories from Americans and Europeans. Good farmland was very cheap and railroads offered low prices and even free transportation to attract farmer. The growth of a state or territory could be measured by the growth of the areas newspapers. With settlers pushing westward communities were considered stable if they had a newspaper publishing. This was a form of communication for all of the settlers and pioneers that lived in the far, rural communities. Larger, more established towns would begin to grow multiple newspapers. One of the papers would promote a Democratic view and the other Republican. Rural weekly papers often used
patent insides. Instead of printing four pages on the front and back of a large sheet of paper, they printed only pages 1 and 4. Pages 2 and 4 arrived already printed, and filled with advertising, essays and stories. The paper was very cheap to buy, and made the newspaper much more attractive to women. ==Mass markets, yellow journalism and muckrakers, 1890–1920==