Page:History of Journalism in the United States.djvu/266

CHAPTER XVIII

PENNY PAPERS AND THE NEW YORK SUN

Development of cheaper papers—De Tocqueville on personal journalism—Philadelphia first in field—Boston second—Appearance of New York Sun—Its many imitators—Immediate success—Amenities among editors—Locke and the moon hoax—The Philadelphia Ledger and the Baltimore Sun—Some rules for reporters—Penny papers debated in Congress.

Unnecessary emphasis has been placed on the price of the popular journals that came into existence in the early thirties. It has generally been asserted that their low price was the cause of their popularity; as a matter of fact, as we have seen, popular journalism was coming, and it was only a question of time when papers with a broader appeal than that of the old-fashioned six-cent sheet would be offered to the public.

Reduction in the cost of materials made possible the penny paper, which led many editors and journalists to appreciate more quickly the democratic movement that was going on around them. In offering a paper to a public that could afford but a penny, they were obliged to study the public and so came to appreciate the fact that what interested the penny public did not interest the six-cent public. In other words, details, such as could be obtained from the police courts, about the life of ordinary people, and the romance of the divorce courts were used to make the penny papers more appealing, thus bringing about a broader interest on the part of the journalists in the human side of the daily life of the city.

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