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The rise and fall of Hicky's Bengal Gazette (1780-82), India's first printed newspaper, is a narrative of prime importance to the history of Indian newspapers, and such is the context within which it has invariably been written. Previous works have approached Hicky's Gazette in a somewhat teleological and insular manner. These accounts have ignored the significance of foreign news among its content and fail to acknowledge Hicky's appropriation of political rhetoric from other parts of the British Empire. Through the contents of Hicky's Gazette we find Calcutta residents engaged in a transoceanic political discourse, criticising 'nabobs' with all the ferocity of the metropolitan British press; claiming the freedoms of Englishmen in common cause with the discontented, not only in Britain, but also in Ireland and America; and participating in discussions to regulate the governance of the East India Company through petitions of grievances. In the circulation of Hicky's paper throughout the presidencies and in the contributions of pseudonymous writers we find a platform for the politically discontented among the European community of Bengal whose voice is otherwise muted amidst the Francis-Hastings disputes and the steady stream of 'official' information between Calcutta and London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2005-2013, the award-winning website HealthNewsReview.org offered reviews ofmajormedia outlets' news stories related to health interventions, including tests, treatments, dietary changes, and prescription drugs. The reviews offered a measure by which the public and journalists themselves could assess the completeness and usefulness of health coverage across 10 criteria for quality reporting. This study produced an analysis of those reviews from 2005 to 2013, indicating significant changes in key areas. Analysis of 1,889 health news story reviews published by HealthNewsReview.org (HNR) between 2005 and 2013 showed that, on average, the stories reviewed during 2005-2010 successfully met just less than half of the criteria, but by 2010-2013, that average had improved to almost 70%. Therewere significant improvements over time in news organizations' success in meeting six of HNR's 10 criteria for a successful health news story related to drugs, devices, surgery and other medical procedures, and diet; however, when data for television stories were excluded, only the improvement in avoiding disease-mongering remained significant. In addition, there was a statistically significant decline in the percentage of stories rated satisfactory on establishing the true novelty of the intervention discussed in the story. There was no improvement in quantification of possible harms from medical interventions. Changes over time in meeting the criteria were related to outlet type and story topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers whether there was a national press before and during the Second World War. After considering the terms used by historians to describe the UK national press, and how it is defined, it looks at aspects of the industry that made it appear national and those which did not. The question of just how national the press was between 1939 and 1945 is then addressed, followed by some concluding comments. It argues that the wartime press was characterised by a high degree of uniformity in terms of organisation, co-operation and content, throwing into relief the more diffuse nature of the industry before and after. The idea of the national press downplays the extent to which newspapers varied considerably in readership, geographical reach, political and social significance. It obscures the important role of the provincial press, abstracting mass circulation London daily morning papers, from their place within an evolving network of mass communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that discourses of a newspaper “crisis” should not be regarded simply as descriptions of the actual state of the press but also as a means by which strategic actors frame the situation. The emerging frames can have substantial consequences for media policy making. The study identifies four key frames used to portray the newspaper “crisis” and discusses their relevance for public debates in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. Similarities and differences are examined through 59 in-depth interviews with policymakers and industry executives as well as a qualitative analysis of policy documents and relevant media coverage. The study demonstrates that debates on the newspaper “crisis” are only partly influenced by (1) economic realities and (2) media policy traditions in the six countries but also reflect (3) the strategic motives of powerful actors and (4) the diffusion of frames across borders, particularly those coming from the United States. A transnationally uniform paradigm emerges according to which the state is expected to play the role of a benevolent but mostly passive bystander, while media companies are expected to tackle the problem mainly by developing innovative content and business strategies. This liberal market paradigm displays one blind spot however: it does not seriously consider a scenario where the market is failing to provide sustainable journalistic quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Newspaper reports of actual or suspected infanticide were by no means unusual in early twentieth-century England, yet few of these ever resulted in conviction on the capital charge. This article traces the ways in which both local and national newspapers reported on one of the rare cases which a woman was sentenced to death for the murder of her baby: the 1909 trial of Alice Cleaver at the Central Criminal Court. Despite clear evidence of her guilt, newspapers focused instead on the ways in which the defendant had conformed to ideas about respectable femininity, and were united in depicting Cleaver as deserving of judicial and public sympathy. Comparing press reports of the trial with unpublished Home Office papers also reveals the deliberate silence of the press on matters which conflicted with the ‘standard’ representation of infanticide cases—including the fact that Cleaver had a learning disability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Between 1800 and 1850 the British newspapers published over 1,000 newspaper articles concerned with Irish abduction, offering a stark contrast to the little attention devoted to English cases during the same period. This article examines representations of Irish abduction in the British press and considers how this form of sexual spectacle contributed to British perceptions of Ireland during this period. Analysis of a number of particularly heinous abduction cases from the early nineteenth century demonstrates how images of vulnerable and often violated women encouraged unfavourable contrasts between Irish and British masculinity in ways that served to heighten anxieties about the nature of civilisation in Ireland. In so doing, this newspaper coverage of Irish abduction helped to assuage concerns about ‘the Irish question’ and, this article argues, to justify the coercive nature of Britain's imperial presence there. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers the way the nineteenth-century newspaper was oriented towards information. Despite their political differences, nineteenth-century newspapers were often discussed as if they were universal, with a paper for every segment of society. My argument is that this apparent universality, where the newspaper was figured as a print genre potentially open to all, laid the foundations for the emergence of the popular press. The paper is in two parts. The first considers the nineteenth-century newspaper as a genre, arguing that its periodicity enabled it to serve as a perfect medium, passing on content derived from elsewhere. The second explores the way information was conceived in the period. By looking at the way the newspaper drew upon, represented, and distributed information, it is possible to understand how it functioned as material media. In conclusion, I look at the way the nineteenth-century newspaper is changed through digitization today. When scholars access nineteenth-century newspapers through digital resources, they engage with a different material media that, in turn, reconfigures the source material. Such encounters foreground the importance of genre while providing new opportunities for its study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the "occupational" autobiographies of reporters and related documents to trace the diffusion of professional standards through late nineteenth-century newsrooms. It found broad agreement among journalists on definitions of news, the methods for its collection, and the routines for its preparation in story format. "Cub" reporters learned these standards through observation and trial and error. Because of economic conditions in the publishing industry and conditions within newsrooms, journalists also developed a parallel set of standards for falsifying or exaggerating stories. The study concludes that sharing standards for breaking news work conventions was as essential to the formation of news workers' professional identities as was following the accepted standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Woodstock Music and Art Fair in August 1969 was an iconic moment of the 1960s for a generation of young people. However, coverage of the breaking story by major newspapers and magazines did not emphasize the event's cultural significance, focusing instead on crowd size and related logistical problems and public safety issues. This study of breaking coverage by six daily newspapers and three magazines examines how prominently the story was displayed, the sources who were quoted, and to what extent the cultural angle was reported. A key finding was that each publication relied mostly on official sources and consulted few young festival attendees for their perspective. The breaking coverage thus focused on the negative aspects of the massive assembly, overlooking the cultural perspective that has come to characterize the event in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent contributions to knowledge about early journalism developed in different parts of Europe-Italy, France, England, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain ... -have made it possible to trace a fairly precise map for the historical origin of this phenomenon. However, the scope of work carried out with a view to developing frameworks of interpretation to explain the reasons for this appearance is not as far-reaching. This paper reviews the recurring theoretical models found to date in the specific bibliography and proposes a new framework of interpretation, capable of encompassing the complexity and pan-European nature of early journalism in history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the national discussion in 1900 about press responsibility, which was sparked by the Rev. Charles Sheldon, a pastor of a Congregationalist church, serving a week-long stint as editor of the Topeka (Kansas) Daily Capital. Afterward, the general consensus of the reams of commentary, from both the press and the pastorate, was that editing a daily paper from a "Christian point of view" was a failure. Nevertheless, the debate revealed the pulpit's acknowledgment of its conferral of the role of agent of education and moral uplift upon the press, making it the new arbiter of public opinion. However, it also showed the pulpit challenging the notion of journalistic objectivity as it struggled to redefine news as interpretive and advocative in order to comport with a journalistic ideal grounded in the gospel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines two decades in the life of Barricada, established as the "official organ" of the revolutionary Sandinista Front (FSLN) in Nicaragua, from its founding in 1979 through to its demise as a daily in 1998. It is argued that, distinct from the overriding "mobilizing imperative" of support for its Sandinista sponsor, an institutionally generated "professional imperative" was also evident in Barricada's functioning from the early days of the paper's operations. After the FSLN's election defeat in 1990, this professional imperative-along with the political preference of most senior staff for "renovation" within the FSLN-resulted in the paper establishing a significant degree of day-to-day autonomy from its sponsor, and important transformations in its journalistic project. This semi-autonomy was foreclosed when the dominant ortodoxo faction of the Front engineered the dismissal of Barricada director Carlos Fernando Chamorro in 1994. Barricada then returned to its more highly mobilized role as FSLN propagandist, but lost readers and advertising revenue as a result, finally closing in February 1998. The newspaper's trajectory serves as a useful bellwether for Nicaragua's revolutionary and post-revolutionary experience as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]