Introduction

This chapter accomplishes two general goals. First, it provides a brief historical account of the commercial aspects of American journalism since its beginning and professionalization in the 19th century. This section illustrates how an advertising-centric financial underpinning came to be, flourished, and ultimately became precarious for the field of journalism. Second, this introduction outlines the large and perhaps unprecedented project detailed in this book. The authors undertook a more than 18-month experiment in market models by researching, implementing, and tracking a change in revenue structure for a rural journalism group of newspapers.