City Life and the Two Journalisms

An Urban Nation.

In 1790 less than 5 percent of the U.S. population lived in cities of more than twenty-five hundred people. By 1920 more than 50 percent lived in cities. As the nation became increasingly urban and mo-bile, people knew fewer of their neighbors personally, and the daily newspaper's importance as the main source of community information and identity grew. Two distinct kinds of journalism evolved to meet the needs of city dwellers. The first, epitomized by the "Old Gray Lady," The New York Times, adhered to a policy of strict factuality. The New York Times aspired to strict objectivity and took a tone of scrupulous dispassion. Its readers were largely upper-middle-class people who needed accurate information for their businesses and who preferred the paper's cultivated tone. The second style, known variously as the New Journalism, yellow journalism, entertainment journalism, or the "use-paper,"...

[The entire page is 667 words long]

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