1.

Based on the chapter's content: What was the importance of the Penny Papers in the US

(from the business and content perspective)? Explain and provide examples. List two

influential Penny Papers back in the days. Why were they important? How are Penny

Papers linked to Yellow Journalism? Explain.

○ The history of Penny Papers plays an important role in the United States in a

business and content perspective. Considering that steam powered presses were

replacing mechanical presses during the age of Penny Papers, around 4000

newspapers were able to be printed in an hour, which allowed businesses to create

a larger distribution of newspapers than before (pg 280). Due to the ability of

being able to produce a numerous amount of newspapers in a short time, the

prices of newspapers were able to become cheaper- thus the term “Penny Papers”.

More people were able to have access to content.

○ Two influential Penny Papers back in the day were: Benjamin Day’s New York

Sun and James Gordon Bennett’s New York Morning Herald. In New York Sun,

the main stories that were in this Penny Paper were fabricated stories (pg 280).

Although fabricated, the New York Sun had made around $8,000 - due to the

reason of having interesting reads, and reasonable prices. The New York Morning

Herald, was classified as a paper that carried, “political essays, news about

scandals, business stories, a letters section, fashion notes, moral reflections,

religious news, society gossip, colloquial tales and jokes, sports stories, and later,

reports from the Civil War,” (pg 281). Like New York Sun, this paper became very

popular for the same reasons- interesting reads and reasonable prices to the

average American. These Penny Papers are important because they literally paved
 the way for newspapers being accessible to the average person, letting the average

person be informed.

○ Yellow journalism is generally about overly dramatic stories about crimes,

celebrities, disasters, and scandals (pg 282). Penny Papers are linked to Yellow

Journalism because many Penny Papers used Yellow Journalism to make their

newspaper sell. It was not uncommon. Yellow Journalism is quite similar to the

term “clickbaiting”. Clickbaiting is commonly used on YouTube today, and its

purpose is to catch the attention of a viewer through a fabricated thumbnail and

video title.

2. Based on the arguments in the chapter: Name and describe two challenges facing

newspapers today in the US and around the world. How new technologies and the

Internet have changed the journalistic industry? Provide at least two examples. What are

some of the recommendations the textbook explains for the future of journalism?

Describe two of them. Do you agree or disagree with these options? Why?

○ Two challenges facing newspapers today in the United States and around the

world are: “the decline in readership and failure to attract young readers” (pg

301). The decline in readership is possibly due to technology advances in society,

with more people having interest in entertainment such as video games, viral

videos, etc. rather than actual news. The failure to attract young readers likely is

the same reason as for the decline of readership.

○ New technologies and the Internet have changed the journalistic industry in many

ways, but for small newspapers in small towns in cities, they have fortunately

stayed unaffected. For instance, the journalistic industry for small newspapers in
 small communities has continued to stay strong due to those papers being, “the

dominant source for local information and the place for local merchants to

advertise,” (pg 302). An example of where the Internet has changed the

journalistic industry is blogging. Online blogs are able to express whatever

opinion they have, whether they were professionals in journalism or not. Blogging

made the playing field even for journalism, which even caused some journalists to

leave their job in newspapers they worked at, to pursue their own journalistic

desires through blogging.

○ The future of journalism looks a lot like newspapers going digital and citizen

journalism on the rise (pg 307). While I agree with newspapers going digital, I am

a bit in the middle of the concept of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism deals

with average citizens “who use the Internet and blogs to disseminate news and

information,” (pg 307). I love the idea of different perspectives/opinions on news

being reported, the problem I have with it is if it is something that is trustable.

Citizen journalism can possibly be one-sided and I definitely feel that could be a

problem when spreading information. A reader may have a high chance of being

misinformed, take sides, and turn out to have a wrong idea on a story the whole

time due to misinformation.