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2009 Coretta Scott King Awards - Another Year of Mock Silence?
cover illustration by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Donald Ritchie, author of Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps, Our Constitution, and The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion, has been Associate Historian of the United States Senate for more than three decades. In the post below he looks at the fall of newspapers.

In her end-of-the-year column, The Washington Post’s ombudsman, Deborah Howell, reviewed some dismal statistics: since she started in her job in 2005, the Post’s daily circulation has declined by 45,000. At the same time, the Post’s web site registered a 15% increase in viewers. A decade earlier, when the Post first launched its online news service, publisher Donald Graham summed up the imperative in three words: “classifieds, classifieds, classifieds,” but the drift toward news on the Internet has drained away larger retail advertising as well. Newspapers across the country have reported similar slumps in circulation and advertising revenue. (more…)

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Donald Ritchie, author of Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps, Our Constitution, and The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion, has been Associate Historian of the United States Senate for more than three decades. This past weekend Ritchie spoke at the AEJMC conference (Association of Educators of Journalism and Mass Communications), and has been kind enough to share his opening remarks with us.  His comments make me wonder what will follow the internet.  Any thoughts?

The Internet as a medium for news reporting is still in its foundling stage, and we can only imagine how it will develop over the long run, or what its intended and unintended consequences might be. A past technology, however, offers some historical clues about its trajectory. Now as obsolete as smoke signals, the telegraph provided the first means of electronic communications and facilitated the news industry for a century and a half. Beyond providing speed, the telegraph changed the way news was reported and the definition of legitimate news reporting. (more…)

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Rebecca OUP-US

To get you excited for the 4th of July holiday we asked Donald Ritchie to blog for us. Ritchie is the author of Reporting from Washington: The History of the Washington Press Corps, Our Constitution, and The Congress of the United States: A Student Companion. His post is sure to make you feel patriotic!

Presidents and legislators often catch flack for taking holidays and not attending to the people’s business, but sometimes a timely break can help move things along. If not for a 4th of July recess, for instance, the U.S. Constitution and the federal government as we know it might never have existed. (more…)

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