ABSTRACT
The unforeseen change in the availability of news from distant places, nationally and internationally, was brought about by the wire services. News became, with extraordinary swiftness, a social institution and a cultural force in the United States—all this as it was simultaneously becoming a commodity. Education, at least to the level of literacy, grew steadily, and one consequence was the growth in newspaper circulations. American newspapers little more than half a century earlier was virtually gone. Nonetheless, by 1921 there were six news associations feeding Negro newspapers. News photos were being delivered electronically from the mid-1930s on, and in the 1970s satellite transmission replaced wired systems in most urban newsrooms. Clearly, packaging the news was very big business and seemed always to be getting bigger. When circulations were small, the ads were regarded as business news in themselves, but the power of advertising grew with the circulation, and the value of circulation was measured by subscriptions, sales, and advertising revenue.
