Many of the things that happened first during the Penny Press era have become the staples of today's journalism: the dominance of non-partisan news; the emphasis on speed; new areas of reporting, including sports reporting; an expansion of readership to include working classes.The list could go on. Much that is on that list began with James Gordon Bennett.Bennett, a 27-year-old Scotsman with a university education in economics, arrived in the United States in 1822. He failed in repeated journalistic ventures in the U.S. before founding the New York Herald in 1835. Within six years, however, he rode the crest of the development of penny newspapers to wealth and power, becoming a leading editor of his time. Bennett didn't invent the penny press, but his success with the Herald made him a captain of the emerging newspaper industry. This book takes up the context of the Penny Press facing Bennett in the 1830s and 1840s, considers the 21st century buzzword "media convergence" with a 19th century spin, and looks at some of Bennett's enduring innovations-and those of a despised competitor, the even-more-famous Horace Greeley, who started his New York Tribune in 1841.In this book, you'll read about* Benjamin Day and the Sun* James Gordon Bennett and the Herald* Horace Greeley and the Tribune* The 19th century version of convergenceThe book also contains a bonus chapter on the First Amendment.This book is part of the Tennessee Journalism Series.

“Lincoln believed that ‘with public sentiment nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed.’ Harold Holzer makes a significant contribution to our understanding of Lincoln’s leadership by showing us how deftly he managed his relations with the press of his day to move public opinion forward to preserve the Union and abolish slavery.” —Doris Kearns Goodwin From his earliest days, Lincoln devoured newspapers. As he started out in politics he wrote editorials and letters to argue his case. He spoke to the public directly through the press. He even bought a German-language newspaper to appeal to that growing electorate in his state. Lincoln alternately pampered, battled, and manipulated the three most powerful publishers of the day: Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, and Henry Raymond of the New York Times. When war broke out and the nation was tearing itself apart, Lincoln authorized the most widespread censorship in the nation’s history, closing down papers that were “disloyal” and even jailing or exiling editors who opposed enlistment or sympathized with secession. The telegraph, the new invention that made instant reporting possible, was moved to the office of Secretary of War Stanton to deny it to unfriendly newsmen. Holzer shows us an activist Lincoln through journalists who covered him from his start through to the night of his assassination—when one reporter ran to the box where Lincoln was shot and emerged to write the story covered with blood. In a wholly original way, Holzer shows us politicized newspaper editors battling for power, and a masterly president using the press to speak directly to the people and shape the nation.

Nineteenth-century press barons in New York City helped to invent the skyscraper. Early newspaper buildings in the country's media capital were designed to communicate both commercial and civic ideals, provide public space and prescribe discourse, and speak to class and mass in equal measure. Wallace illustrates how the media have continued to use the city as a space in which to inscribe and assert their power. She considers how architecture contributed to the power of the press, the nature of the reading public, the commercialization of media, and corporate branding in the media industry.

Relations between the press and politicians in modern America have always been contentious. In The Press Gang, Mark Summers tells the story of the first skirmishes in this ongoing battle. Following the Civil War, independent newspapers began to separate themselves from partisan control and assert direct political influence. The first investigative journalists uncovered genuine scandals such as those involving the Tweed Ring, but their standard practices were often sensational, as editors and reporters made their reputations by destroying political figures, not by carefully uncovering the facts. Objectivity as a professional standard scarcely existed. Considering more than ninety different papers, Summers analyzes not only what the press wrote but also what they chose not to write, and he details both how they got the stories and what mistakes they made in reporting them. He exposes the peculiarly ambivalent relationship of dependence and distaste among reporters and politicians. In exploring the shifting ground between writing the stories and making the news, Summers offers an important contribution to the history of journalism and mid-nineteenth-century politics and uncovers a story that has come to dominate our understanding of government and the media.