R2-The Media in the United States

Reading 2： The Media in the United States

http://usa.usembassy.de/media.htm

I.

Introduction

The U.S. media today is frequently known as the Fourth Estate, an appellation that suggests the press shares equal stature with the other branches of government created by the Constitution. The press, or \Estate\plays a vital role as a guardian of U.S. democracy. That role is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, adopted in 1789, stipulating that Congress not enact any laws abridging freedom of the press.

U.S. media have traveled a long road since the first newspaper was published in Boston, Massachusetts in 1690. Within 50 years, magazines also began appearing in several major American cities. The advent of commercial radio at the beginning of the 20th century ended print's monopoly of the media in America, giving nationwide and, later, global audiences unprecedented access to live audio programs. Television, an even more powerful medium, entered the scene shortly after World War II. Defying predictions of their decline, the other media have diversified to confront television's dominant appeal. Satellite technology has allowed U.S. TV networks, especially cable networks, to reach overseas audiences anywhere on the globe. Interactive media, fueled by the advance of digital technology and the growing convergence of the computer, telephone and cable television, represent the principal trend of the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries.

The print and electronic media in the United States, offering wide news and entertainment options, are a pervasive element in American society. According to a recent survey by Mediamark Research, 98% of Americans have a television; 82% of those watch \programming in an average week. 84% percent of Americans listen to radio regularly. 79% percent are newspaper readers. 45% percent of the whole American population has access to the Internet, while for certain demographic groups that percentage reaches a high of close to 70%. Economics plays a major role in shaping the information served up to the U.S. public in newspapers, on radio and television, and now on the Internet. While nonprofit and advocacy organizations have significant voices, most of the public's primary sources of information -- major urban newspapers, the weekly news magazines, and the broadcast and cable networks -- are in business to make money. Media and communications, with revenues of over $242 billion, are one of America's largest business groups. In 2000, adult consumers of media information and amusement products spent over $675 a person. Advertisers spent an additional $215 billion to bring their products to the attention of the American public. The media are a great engine in American society, providing jobs for hundreds of thousands of technicians, writers, artists, performers and intellectuals and shaping attitudes and beliefs. II．Freedom of the Press

The public's right to know is one of the central principles of American society. The framers of the Constitution of the United States resented the strict control that the American colonies' British

1

rulers had imposed over ideas and information they did not like. They determined that the power of knowledge should be placed in the hands of the people. To insure a healthy and uninhibited flow of information, they included freedom of the press among the basic human rights protected in the new nation's Bill of Rights. These first 10 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States became law in 1791. The First Amendment says, in part, that \make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…\That protection from control by the federal government meant that anyone -- rich or poor, and regardless of political or religious beliefs -- could generally publish whatever he or she wished.

Ever since, the First Amendment has served as the conscience and shield of all Americans. In those early days, the media, created by printing presses, were few and simple -- newspapers, pamphlets and books. Today the media also include television, radio, films and the Internet; and the term \

Few press laws are in force in the U.S. because of this broad constitutional protection of press freedom and analogous provisions in the constitutions of the 50 states. Existing laws tend to provide additional protections in categories not covered by the Constitution. The Privacy Act of 1974, for example, regulates the collection and dissemination of personal information contained in the files of federal agencies; the Privacy Protection Act of 1980 establishes protection from police searches of newsrooms. Additional examples include federal and state Freedom of Information and \laws (such as the 1966 federal Freedom of Information Act) which opens up executive-branch records to public and press scrutiny.

The scope of U.S. press freedom has been determined principally by court decisions interpreting the nuances of the First Amendment. In general, the U.S. courts have held that the press has a \hand, defamation, obscenity and publication of national-security secrets have been generally determined not eligible for protection under the First Amendment.

In 1934, Congress set up the current oversight agency of the broadcasting industry, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The law vested in the FCC not only \but licensing and rulemaking powers, subject to \interest, convenience, and necessity.\Acting on this mandate, the FCC has sought to promote diversity in content and ownership in the broadcasting industry.

III. Media Ethics

The investigative journalism and the \role developed by the American press in the 1960s and early 1970s gave way to increased attention to \War, the press played a major role in accelerating the U.S. exit from an unpopular war. During the Watergate investigation, two persistent reporters from the Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, succeeded in uncovering facts that led to the resignation of President Nixon. There was, however, also a feeling that the press sometimes went too far, crossing the fine line between the public's right to know and both the right of individuals to privacy and the obligation of the

2

government to protect national security. In many cases, the courts have decided when and if the press has overstepped its rights. In 1971, the government tried to stop the New York Times from publishing a secret study of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers, claiming that publication would damage national security. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that since the government could not demonstrate the extent of the damage to national security, the newspapers should be free to publish the information.

Faced, however, with polls showing decreasing credibility in press reports, media organizations throughout the 1980s placed renewed emphasis on ethics, taking advantage of such vehicles as codes, news councils and ombudsmen. Journalistic codes of ethics have been in use in the United States since 1923. The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) approved the first such code; followed by the Society of Professional Journalists/Sigma Delta Chi and the Associated Press Managing Editors. These voluntary ethical codes of the three major newspaper professional organizations offer important guidelines, calling on journalists to perform with intelligence, objectivity, accuracy and fairness.

One of the most important issues for American journalists, however, remains the conflict between two deeply held beliefs: the right to know and the right to privacy and fair treatment. It is not a conflict that can be resolved with a single formula, but only on a case-by-case basis. Although the First Amendment protects the press from government interference, the press does not have complete freedom. There are laws against libel and invasion of privacy, as well as limits on what reporters may do in order to get a story. Television news journalists operate under an additional restriction called the Fairness Doctrine. Under this rule, when a station presents one viewpoint on a controversial issue, the public interest requires the station to give representatives of opposing viewpoints a chance to broadcast a reply. The U.S. court system, state and federal legislatures, regulatory bodies, the public and the media will all continue to have a hand in shaping how such legal and ethical issues are handled.

IV. Newspapers

The first U.S. newspaper, Publick Occurrences: Both Foreign and Domestick, first published on September 25, 1690 lasted only one day before it was suppressed by British colonial authorities. Other newspapers quickly sprang up, however, and by 1730, the colonial press had gained sufficient stature to seriously challenge British governors. Historians consider the birth of America's free-press tradition to have begun with the 1734 trial of John Peter Zenger for seditious libel. After the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), this concept found a home in the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment states: \make no law... abridging the freedom of speech or of the press...\for a free press to develop over the next two centuries as one of America's strongest watchdogs over government actions and protectors of individual rights. In fact, one of America's greatest political journalists was one of its first, Thomas Paine. Paine's stirring writings urging independence made him the most persuasive \Britain in 1776.

3

By the early 1800s, the United States had entered a period of swift technological progress that marked the real beginning of the \railroad and telegraph brought communications out of the age of windpower and horses. The high-speed printing press was developed, driving down the cost of printing. Expansion of the educational system taught more Americans to read. Publishers realized that a profitable future belonged to cheap newspapers with large readerships and increased advertising. The press went from a small upper class readership to mass readership in just a few years. It was a time that shaped a breed of editors who set the standard for generations of American journalists. Many of these men were hard-headed reformers who openly sided with the common men, opposed slavery and backed expansion of the frontier. They combined idealism with national pride, and their papers became the means by which great masses of new immigrants were taught the American way of life. By the 1820s, about 25 dailies and more than 400 weeklies were being published in the United States. Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune in 1841, and it quickly became the most influential newspaper in America. Other important dailies, such as the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, and Chicago Tribune were founded in the 1850s. Two media giants, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, began building their newspaper empires after the Civil War (1861-1865). Their fierce competition produced \journalism\-- sensational and often inaccurate reporting aimed at attracting readers. \newspapers under the same ownership became a dominant feature in the early 20th century. In addition to the front-running Hearst chain, the Scripps-Howard and Cowles chains grew following World War I. That trend accelerated after World War II, and in 1990, a total of 135 groups owned 1,228 daily newspapers, accounting for about 75 percent of all U.S. dailies. In 1971, there had been 66 cities with two or more dailies owned by separate companies, while in 1995 there were only 36.

In spite of the serious competition from television after World War II, more than two-thirds of American adults read a daily newspaper on an average weekday. The top five daily newspapers by circulation are: the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post. The number of dailies dropped from 1,763 in 1946 to 1,438 in 1999. However, the number of Sunday papers rose from 497 in 1946 to 905 in 1999, bringing total daily and Sunday papers to 2,388. This figure represents the highest number of newspapers with the highest total circulation -- 115 million -- for any country in the world.

Today, American newspapers face competition not only from network TV, but from a whole spectrum of targeted and specialized media, including personalized web services, local cable programming, interactive television, special-interest publications, catalogs and other direct-mail initiatives. Newspapers are relying on new technology to meet the challenge. Through the Internet, electronic newspapers can be transmitted to hand-held computers and printed using personal computers. V. Magazines

The same developments that spurred increased newspaper circulation -- faster printing methods, lower prices, the lure of advertising money --- also marked the beginning of mass appeal magazines. Several types of magazines emerged. The late 1800s saw the start of opinion journals

4

still influential a century later, including the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation, and Harper's. The largest readerships were won, however, by magazines that catered to Americans' increasing leisure time and appetite for consumer goods, magazines such as Cosmopolitan, the Ladies Home Journal, and the Saturday Evening Post. Publishers were no longer just selling reading material; they were selling readers to advertisers. Because newspapers reached only local audiences, popular magazines attracted advertisers eager to reach a national audience for their products. By the early 1900s, magazines had become major marketing devices.

At the same time, a new breed of newspaper and magazine writer was exposing social corruption. Called \Yet magazines did not truly develop as a powerful shaper of news and public opinion until the 1920s and 1930s, with the start of the news weeklies. Time was launched in 1923 by Henry Luce (1898-1967). Intended for people too busy to keep up with a daily newspaper, Time was the first magazine to organize news into separate departments such as national affairs, business and science. Newsweek, using much the same format, was started in 1933. Other prominent news weeklies are Business Week and U.S. News and World Report.

Magazine publishers have increasingly tried to appeal to clearly-defined audiences. Computer technology has helped publishers to target special-interest audiences. As a result of this specialization, the number of periodicals published in the United States jumped from 6,960 in 1970 to close to 10,000 in 1999. VI. Radio

The beginning of regular commercially licensed sound broadcasting in the United States in 1920 ended the print monopoly over the media and opened the doors to the more immediate and pervasive electronic media. By 1928, the United States had three national radio networks - two owned by NBC (the National Broadcasting Company), and one by CBS (the Columbia Broadcasting System).

Though mostly listened to for entertainment, radio's instant, on-the-spot reports of dramatic events drew huge audiences throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II. President Franklin Roosevelt recognized the potential of radio to reach the American public, and during his four terms (1933-1945), his radio \to counter the Depression and on developments during World War II. After World War II, television's visual images replaced the audio-only limitation of radio as the predominant entertainment and news vehicle. Radio adapted to the new situation by replacing entertainment programs with a format of music interspersed with news and features. In the 1950s, automobile manufacturers began offering car radios as standard accessories, and radio received a big boost as Americans tuned in their car radios as they drove to and from work.

The expansion and dominance of FM radio, which has better sound quality but a more limited range than traditional AM, represented the major technical change in radio in the 1970s and 1980s. FM radio, aided by the invention of ever smaller portable radios and inexpensive \headsets, dominates music programs, while AM has shifted to \

5

本文来源：https://www.bwwdw.com/article/t0jv.html