I was reading some old New York based newspaper stories from the 1930’s the other day re some articles about local crimes and I was struck by how amazingly detailed the stories were. Beyond the crime scene there was an extensive back story on the victim and the reporter talked to the families of both the victim and alleged perp and gave rundown on the criminal history of the alleged perp.
And this was not a big deal criminal this was just some run of the mill assault type robbery type street crime. It was mini dissertation on the events that transpired and the reporter obviously had full access to the crime scene which he described in minute detail. This was an everyday article.
Why did that style of super detailed reporting die out in later decades?
People READ more in general. They were used to reading. Reading was how you found out what you needed to know. Radio was around, but no TV. And there weren’t any portable radios (hard to believe, eh?)-- radio was just for home or work. So if you were out on the bus or subway, you’d read a book, newspaper, or magazine. People read novels. At that time there were dozens of magazines that featured short stories–mainstream magazines, not just literary journals.
People read more today than at any other time in human history. The rate of literacy is higher today and more words are will be written and then read tomorrow than were written in entire generations in the past.
The decline of print media is not due to a lack of literacy or less time reading among the general population.
Fewer people buying print newspapers and fewer advertisers for print newspapers equals making the papers smaller (for the same or greater price) and having fewer writers doing more tasks each?
I should have been more clear in my question. I know why news reporting is changing now. This style of intensive, hyper dense reporting for everyday urban events (it seems) largely vanished by the 60’s and 70’s when newspapers were still mighty and profitable cash engines. Why the change then?
WAGs: It may have had something to do with paper shortages/conservation during WWII, or with news magazines (TIME et al) taking over some of the function of detailed, long-form reporting.
Okay, in that case, my guess is that since people didn’t have any real need to know that level of detail, they were reading it to entertain themselves. Radio and television grew to provide that need and displaced the newspaper articles.
(I also think about how so many really long articles (I’m looking at you, Wired) really could benefit from having a lot of fat trimmed from them. (As Blaise Pascal once said, “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.”))
I have to wonder if this long lost Golden Age of reporting ever actually existed outside the very large cities. You know, the places where one finds it today.
I have to say I find it confounding how easily people on this MB will accept an OP’s unsubstantiated thesis without question. That is not say I’m certain I’m right here, but how about the OP verify that his claim is actually true before we go and figure out why it’s true.
I think you would find that detailed print news stories were still much in evidence right on up through the early 90s, and even a bit later. Traditional print journalists were taught to write their articles starting with the basic information and then in a manner that would allow an editor to simply cut off the last x paragraphs without substantially affecting the article. A lot of two-column stories got cut to one and three-column stories got cut to two. But many stories were published in full and seem to us now to be ridiculously detailed. The assignment desk probably said, “Give me N words on this event.”
My personal peeve now is that many on-line articles omit datelines. (For anyone who doesn’t know, datelines aren’t really to show a date. They show the location.) If I go to a broadcast news site to read breaking news, I’m usually reading a text summary that does NOT show the location. “Ten Students Killed In Bus Crash” Is this in my town? Is it in SF? Is it in Indonesia? Who knows? They just harvested a few graphs from some local source and didn’t bother to identify the location.
I don’t have the crime article I read a while ago at my fingertips this moment, but here’s a similar detailed reporting example form a 1940 New York paper the Jamestown Evening Journal. This one (top left of page) describes a court case about dry cleaners being required to post a $ 1000 cash bond. This municipal blip might never even make the news these days or if it did it might be a paragraph or two. This goes on for multiple paragraphs discussing all angles of this, everyday mundane case in detail.
I also want that 8 foot toboggan on sale for $ 8.98
I don’t think that’s a very good example. The majority of the article quotes the judge’s ruling. (The article says only part of the ruling was quoted, but I would not be surprised if that was the entire thing.) And the rest of the article could be gathered from reading court papers or spending a short time talking to people in the courthouse.
I worked on a student newspaper in college and this sort of story was not difficult to write.
As for the sort of really detailed story you describe in the OP that includes a crime scene description and the background of the criminal, much of that can also be gotten from the records. And honestly, it’s possible that some of the color in the article is just made up.
Considering how much of the Kitty Genovese story was essentially fabricated, one might wonder how much of the detail in stories such as these was trustworthy.
Point taken. So a local urban crime beat or street news reporter in the 30’s -40’s might have considerable latitude in fluffing up a story without getting called on it?
I see your point, so a big chunk of the “detail” is not necessarily interviews (which is what I assumed) but could just be creatively re-wring the police report and the accused person’s rap sheet for filler.
Yup. The article you linked to (and perhaps the one you described) is what I’d describe as a primary-source story. We liked those on the student newspaper. Say the university administration releases a report on how they plan to address the housing crisis on- and off-campus. You get a copy of the report, summarize it and then call a couple of people to get some quotes or opinions on the story. You can finish the story in under an hour and possibly never even get off your ass. It can be the laziest form of journalism.
While people read more than they did in the past, their attention spans are shot to hell now.
Most news stories at the papers I’ve worked at are about 200-350 words at most, with longer features (maybe 1000 words) kept for the weekend papers or perhaps a double-page spread on an issue the paper is campaigning for (or wants to win an award to be seen to be campaigning for, the cynic in me sometimes thinks).