Search

Julio Mesquita joined the staff of "O Estado de Sao Paulo" in 1885 and became a director in 1891, when he also began his first term as a deputy of the Sao Paulo state assembly. Until his death in 1927, Mesquita guided the newspaper's growth in all respects--editorial, political, technological, and economic. Julio de Mesquita Filho assumed leadership of the paper after his father's death. In 1930 "O Estado" backed Getulio Vargas for president, only to turn against him when Vargas' dictorial intent became apparent. In 1940 Vargas took over the paper and in 1945 the government returned the paper to the Mesquitas and "O Estado" immediately resumed its anti-Vargas stance, only to see Vargas' hand-picked successor elected to office. "O Estado" was a leader in modern production techniques in the post-World War II period and also set high standards in employee benefits and working conditions. In the early 1960s, "O Estado" opposed the left-leaning government in power and supported the military takeover of 1964. Four years later the political climate, including institutionalized press censorship, was such that Mesquita Filho ceased writing editorials. At his death in 1969, "O Estado" was a prime target of government repression. (Author/RB)

With the increasing competition from television in recent years, the newspaper industry has finally realized that it doesn't have the news field as its sole domain. The competition, especially from colored television, and the fast pace of contemporary society have influenced the layout and printing format of the national newspapers in several ways: nonessential print is being removed from the masthead; stress is placed on readable type that lessens eye strain; more white space is left around pictures, making them stand out; emphasis is placed on a horizontal progression in contrast to the vertical columns that characterized the layout of earlier newspapers; and greater attention is given to research concerning the tastes and habits of readers. (The original presentation of this paper included a slide show visually demonstrating examples of layout and format changes in newspapers.) (RB)

This paper attempts to document the cultural influences which the United States exerts over Canada because of Canadian reliance on foreign news agencies, especially news services that are located in the United States. The print material used to document this paper was drawn from a 1967 study of news flows for the Canadian Department of External Affairs and a 1969 content analysis of 30 Canadian dailies for the Special Senate Committee on the Mass Media. The broadcast material was gathered in a series of interviews done especially for this paper. The data in this case study is presented in both narrative and table form and the extent to which Canadian newscasts follow the American format and content when they are recorded for rebroadcast is examined. This news policy is especially significant when news is translated into French, but contains an American perspective on world events. The paper concludes with a five-point plan to solve the problem of Canadian reliance on foreign agencies for news. (RB)

The editorials about four Vietnam War news events that appeared in five newspapers were examined for content, tone, page placement, and length to discover what trends in editorial coverage occurred. The 131 editorials that were examined appeared in the "New York Times," the "Los Angeles Times," the "Wall Street Journal," the "Chicago Tribune," and the "Washington Post" within 21 days of the following news events: the Tonkin Gulf incident, the 1968 Tet Offensive, President Nixon's 1969 "Vietnamization" announcement, and the fall of Saigon. Five major findings resulted from the content analysis: (1) The overall tone of the editorials was antiwar. (2) During the periods studied, the "New York Times" was consistently antiwar while the "Wall Street Journal" trended from antiwar to prowar and the other three newspapers trended from prowar to antiwar. (3) The newspapers were willing to take definite stands during the periods under study. (4) The paper that most clearly appeared to have changed its editorial opinion was the "Los Angeles Times." (5) The "New York Times" and the "Washington Post," both generally prolific in their editorials throughout the periods studied, inexplicably presented fewer items on the Tet Offensive than the other papers. The study also established the usefulness of the basic "Statistical Package for the Social Sciences" (SPSS) in newspaper content analysis. (RL)

The limited effectiveness of the press as an agent of reform is considered in this paper in view of the role of the Minneapolis press in the rise and decline of a corrupt city administration from 1900 to 1905. The paper first posits a continuum along which press effects on reform may be pinpointed; it then discusses the muckraking era, which included the period under consideration, and tells of Lincoln Steffens's "The Shame of Minneapolis," a muckraking article about the Minneapolis scandal. The following topics are then discussed: the scandal, which centered on the gathering of graft by Mayor Albert Ames and his associates, using police authority as leverage; the way the three Minneapolis newspapers covered the administration from 1900 through the 1902 grand jury indictments of administration officials and the resignation of Ames; reform attempts by the new administration; and the 1903 indictment and subsequent trials of Ames. It is concluded that even the two newspapers that opposed the Ames administration did not probe to uncover the underlying pattern of corruption, that the papers printed the most revealing stories about the scandal only after the grand jury had unearthed the details, and that the newspapers' prescriptions for reform were confined to the area of the replacement of corrupt personnel, rather than addressing more fundamental changes in government structures. (GW)

The question of whether publishers' news preferences affect the performances of editors and reporters is examined in this paper. The first section reviews studies of ways the newsroom environment has affected reporters' role assumptions; it then notes that previous studies have generally been monadic (focusing on only one person) and have provided little insight into role interactions in the newsroom. The second section shows how the coorientation model of communication was used in a dyadic study in twelve Indiana newsrooms, in which the following coorientation relationships were investigated: agreement between reporters' and editors' news selections; congruency between reporters' selections and their perceptions of how their superiors would select the news; and accuracy of reporters' perceptions of their superiors' news selections. Among the findings presented in the paper were that reporters and editors seem to operate independently of each other, that reporters pay more attention to their own convictions than to those of their editors and publishers, and that the news play of editors and publishers is very similar. (GW)

Noting that, historically, newspaper editors copied the best, and sometimes erroneous, stories from other newspapers published in distant cities, this paper explores newpaper coverage of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, and the myth that Mrs. O'Leary's cow was to blame. After suggesting that a report invented the story of the O'Leary cow kicking a lantern and starting the fire, the first portion of the paper describes the dry and fire-prone conditions of the city at the time, the O'Leary family, and the fire's destruction. The middle portion describes how the four Chicago newspapers, their offices destroyed, still managed to publish in the days immediately following the fire. This section also examines initial newspaper accounts of the fire, which did in fact begin in O'Leary's barn, and traces the origins of the "irate cow" story. The next section explores accounts published in papers across the country, discussing why the stories were so sensational and inaccurate. These include a story stating that the fire was the result of a communist conspiracy. The last portion of the paper describes various witnesses and their testimony before the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners--most of them exonerating the O'Learys of blame for the fire--and then discusses the most likely causes of the fire, and the likelihood that the "cow story" had been a hoax intended to make the story more lively. (HTH)

The nature and function of news in the public life of seventeenth-century New England and the legacy this conception of news left for the development of American newspaper journalism in the eighteenth century are explored in this paper. The paper argues that the origin of American news--its subject matter, style, and method of reporting--is deeply rooted in the religious culture of seventeenth-century New England and that the doctrine of divine providence helped to shape the nature of news and news reporting in America. The publications of Samuel Danforth, Increase Mather, and his son, Cotton Mather, all leading seventeenth-century religious figures, are examined in the paper to illustrate the eclectic, reportorial method of inquiry. The paper claims that the characteristics of news and news reporting that emerged in seventeenth-century New England--event orientation, supported by reportorial empiricism and authoritative interpretation--left an ambiguous legacy, a legacy for "both" orthodoxy and heresy in modern American journalism. The paper concludes that Puritanism in America provided a rich environment for the growth of news and for the growth of a particular methodology for identifying, gathering, reporting, and publishing news stories, and that for the most part, the first newspapers, such as the "Boston News-Letter," continued the news reporting style that had been central to the teleological news system of seventeenth-century New England. (Eighty-three notes and two tables of data are included.) (MS)

This paper suggests that the upcoming transfer of Hong Kong from Great Britain to the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1997, offers a unique opportunity to observe how changing configurations in the political environment influence mass media. The article investigates how the Hong Kong press, which spans the entire left-center-right ideological spectrum, has begun to adapt its "journalistic paradigms" because of the political transition. The paper also (1) develops the concept of "journalistic paradigm" (taken-for-granted and unspoken assumptions); (2) traces the emergence of a dualistic power structure (colonial and Xinhau [New China] News Agency) in Hong Kong; (3) examines political ideology and partisan affiliation of the press; and (4) compares the direction and magnitude of editorial paradigm shifts in relation to press ideology. A content analysis of several newspapers, reported in the paper, reveals that the shifts of the "journalistic paradigms" are contingent upon the press' political affiliations--the rightist press has gradually converged with the centrist press, shifting from an initial stance favoring continued British rule to accommodate the PRC's takeover of Hong Kong, and the leftist press has reduced its anti-colonial overtone. One table of data and 73 notes are included. (MS)

A study was conducted to examine the journalism work of James Gordon Bennett, who founded the "New York Herald" in the 1830s, and to determine the nature of his coverage of religion before, during, and after the "Moral War" waged in 1840 against Bennett's popular newspaper. In addition, the study analyzed what Bennett's religion coverage reveals about the man, his work, and his times. A content analysis was conducted of randomly selected issues of Bennett's "New York Herald" from 1836 to 1844. Each issue in the sample was read and all items, exclusive of paid advertisements, that mentioned a religion, religious person, or word commonly associated with religion was considered religious coverage. Each item was then coded using a content analysis scheme that called for recording the length, author, style of writing, geographic location of the newsworthy event or situation, the primary religion discussed in the item and the image of that religion created by the coverage. Examination of the 224 religion items identified in the study indicates that religion coverage in the paper was more complex and less easily stereotyped as irreverent and critical of religion than some historians suggest, and that, although the coverage of religion did change over time, the change cannot be ascribed to an attempt to allay criticism of the paper that followed the Moral War. (DF)

Analyzing the history of the "Oklahoma Eagle" provides insight into the problems and the opportunities involved in operating a black newspaper and reveals the factors responsible for the paper's longevity. The paper has been owned and operated by members of the Edward Lawrence Goodwin family since 1938 and has been staffed by excellent journalists over the course of the years. A review of copies of the "Eagle" from the last 9 years reveals a number of consistencies. The paper was normally neat and well edited, and contained many ads, particularly in the 1970s. Generally, the paper provided significant news. A member of the Goodwin family listed five factors that have enabled the paper to survive: (1) quality staff; (2) advertising success; (3) size of community; (4) sound relations with the community; and (5) family commitment. Eight years have passed since the death of E. L. Goodwin, and the family-owners have undertaken changes, but they have yet to find solid management footing. The problems of the "Eagle" are typical of the Black press today, and other papers may benefit from the "Eagle's" experience. (DF)