When people say that local journalism is dying and focus is more on national and world news, they don’t realize that even in the Wild West, this was still the case.
In the 1840s, the very first business to establish their base in a new frontier town would be the newspaper. This would be for two distinct reasons:
- To keep the eventual population well-informed on what was going on in the outside world
- To showcase to said outside world that there was a booming town of well-informed people and that new people should move there.
On the first detail specifically, many local, rural newspapers had agreements with numerous national companies to allow them to get access to their news articles, which they would then use for their own columns. However, it was not just a copy-paste procedure, but a careful coordination between editors and writers to ensure that a suitable mix was put in to get both the local residents’ attention as well as assuring that other people may hear of the town and move in; thus bolstering the town’s economy so to speak.
Beyond that, many newspapers were very explicit in being partisan and not necessarily being impartial; but rather writing to what the readers wanted to see. The goal was not only to inform the readers on the events, but on the political party’s events and get voters to go for the party’s ticket.
So when people say journalism is dying because of outlets’ political ideologies. You just say “No, It’s always been like this!”1
- American Newspapers, 1800-1860: Country Papers – History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library – U of I Library. (n.d.). Www.library.illinois.edu. https://www.library.illinois.edu/hpnl/tutorials/antebellum-newspapers-country/ ↩︎