Smith, Anthony. “The Condition of the Newspaper.” Goodbye Gutenberg: The Newspaper Revolution of the 1980’s. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1980. 27-41. Print.

            The newspaper’s long history begins in the seventeenth century with the “news-hawker”, who “negotiated” the released information.  The “nouvellistes” speak the news to crowds and in the early 19^th century, newsboys make the newspaper the “mental highway through which the imagery of the city traveled; it brought people into the city and held them there”.  The images and stories of individual American success fuel what Oswald Spenglar calls the “Age of Discussion” where “political change shifted irreversibly…from physical to mental struggle”.  The 1880’s provide the modern approach to “the signed dispatch” and the interview.  With that, the interview and the investigation become the most highly praised form of journalism.  The Washington Post maintains its hold on Watergate investigations by holding a monopoly over local newspapers.  This new economic stronghold changes the newspaper business to a “local monopoly market”.  The demographics change as a result.  The old demographics of the newspapers, the “elite”, lose interest in the commonality of the papers.  The population shift in the 1960’s to a “megalopolitan” lifestyle threatens the newspaper industry. Television dominates the news business and relays information faster than newspapers.  The old political opinions neutralize, and the public grow discontented with the “homogeneity of opinion” in the newspapers.  The “mid-life crisis” of the newspaper occurs with the increase of television maturity.