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For the 30 years between 1837 and 1867, the Gateshead Observer provided coverage of local and national business, financial and political news that rivalled and frequently surpassed that of the various Newcastle papers and was vastly superior to that of other north-eastern publications. This article examines how this came about. It also considers how a newspaper avowedly political in its foundation emerged, as a result of the particular circumstances of Gateshead's enfranchisement and industrial development and the individuals involved, essentially as a paper for the business community. This case study also reveals how the provincial press can shed light on an otherwise very much under-documented period of local business history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues for the relevance of the media history of the press. Using a broad and open media concept, this perspective should be understood as the study of the construction and communication of the self-images and ideology of the press. Rather than describing the complex of problems as images that are 'spread' through one channel (newspapers) by one actor (the press), it should be seen as a mutual exchange between various media and various actors. Different audiences have been resources for the press, just as the press has been a resource for them. Instead of separating proper journalism, the spreading of the self-image, and the reception of different audiences as clearly defined areas, they must be seen as constituting each other. Focusing on the funeral of Swedish editor Lars Hierta, the paper argues for the methodological advantages inherent in the media event and the surrounding cultural circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of this paper examine key decision-making points in both the 1980–81 Janet Cooke fabrication case at the Washington Post and the deceptions of Jayson Blair at the New York Times that stretch from 1999 to 2003. These decisions are weighed against the commonly understood mission of journalism in general and the specifically stated missions at the Washington Post and the New York Times. The paper's working thesis is that if newspapers do not consistently measure their decisions and actions against their mission as a public trust, their commitment to truth can become shrouded by less noble motives like ambition and the thrill of a scoop. The authors argue that the prevailing organizational cultures at the Post and the Times failed to reinforce the newspapers’ main commitment at every level and thereby contributed to their blindness in both the Cooke and Blair cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the penny press was getting started in cities such as Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia, a thousand miles to the west Chicago's early newspapers followed a different path. The party papers of Chicago in the years from the city's founding in 1833 to the Great Fire in 1871 grew to incorporate elements more typically associated with the penny press even as penny papers that started there during the period failed. Chicago's party press by the 1850s and 1860s had begun to shed its formal ties to political patrons as journalists served larger and more diverse audiences, both earlier than has been thought and in more sophisticated ways than has previously been described. Also briefly examined in the article is the possible development in this period of the "scoop" by Chicago's post-Civil War journalists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an analysis of news conventions used by 19th-century American newspapers, I show that the news of this time period took much the same form. Across geography, size of paper, and kind of paper (associational, commercial, partisan), newspapers shared the same conventions. I explain this uniformity in terms of James Carey's notion that the news expresses a form of public life. In this case, I argue that 19th-century news expressed a form of public life that was deeply imbued with values of association, affiliation, and partisanship. As newspapers expressed these values, they ritually reinforced a particular image of public life. I argue that this cultural approach to news conventions accounts for the available evidence in ways that may help the field move beyond functionalist explanations of news. In so doing, it opens new directions for understanding the relationship between news generally, and the public life in which it is situated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role does the local media, particularly the local press play, in the local constituency campaign during UK general elections? Drawing on interviews with MPs and candidates and evidence from a series of content analysis studies of local newspapers, this article reviews the extent to which the local press offers coverage to political actors during and outside the period of the election campaign. It argues that the pressure to court the local media and to build a local profile is rarely matched by extensive coverage and that this should raise questions about the place of the local press in the local constituency campaign. The paper also sets out the strategies used by MPs and candidates to court the local press and argues that this reflects the very limited role that the local press plays within the local constituency in respect of its political coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contextualizes the manner in which the newspaper "Votes for Women" evolved to challenge and compete with the press prior to 1912, within a discussion of the Women's Social and Political Union's (WSPU) wider press strategy. The populist style may simply have been considered the most appropriate means of conveying news of the militant campaign's sensational activities; new methods of protest necessitating new means of communication. However, viewed within the wider context of the WSPU's activities, the paper's populism should be considered a deliberate part of an organizational press strategy. The attempts to attract, and subsequently influence and critique, news coverage indicated the Union's press-aware outlook. With this cognizance sharpened by intensifying press hostility to militancy, Votes for Women's populist format, together with its efforts for mass-circulation, signaled an effort to confront apparent press prejudice by marketing an alternative source of suffrage news to a large audience.