Big Business.

During most of the nineteenth century, a newspaper or a magazine could be started with a little borrowed cash and a lot of hard work. Most publications expressed the views and preferences of their publishers and editors: it was the age of personal journalism. By 1900 it took at least a million dollars to launch a newspaper in New York City, and most publications were affected by business concerns. So began the age of corporate journalism. What had been a personal, local, and literary enterprise became steadily more bureaucratic, national, and professional throughout the twentieth century. In 1900 there were 2,226 dailies with a combined circulation of 15.1 million in the United States. Big Questions. Rapid growth in population, resources, and power had turned the United States into a decidedly industrial nation by the turn of the century, but basic questions about the character of the nation remained unanswered. What...