Relationship between paper, readers is always changing

‘Newspapers pay attention to what’s going on, and the newsroom they have is the largest information-gathering resource in (the) community.’

— Stephen Lacy, journalism professor

By Shena Abercrombie
Journal Staff Writer

A test question might have stumped Paige Barnett, a student at St. John Vianney Catholic School, if not for The Flint Journal.

Paige said reading the newspaper helped her boost her score on the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test, which could land her a college scholarship.

“There were questions on the test about NATO, and we’d learned about that in the newspaper,” Barnett said.

Students at the private school read The Journal at least once a week through the Newspapers In Education program.

It’s just one example of how use of the local paper has changed over the years.

Eighth-graders in Steven Simms’ class get a weekly current events quiz based on information found in The Journal, with questions ranging from world news events to the weather page.

But the earliest editions of The Flint Journal and what readers looked for in its pages were quite different in the late 1800s.

The oldest known surviving copy of The Flint Journal is from December 1876, and reads more like one of today’s Sunday shoppers, with the front page made up largely of ads.

It was a customary practice of the time, said Michigan State University journalism professor Stephen Lacy.

“Advertising was quite different then,” Lacy said. “Today, we’re used to a lot of television advertising. Newspapers were always important in advertising because it announced the availability of an item. ... It was different then because ... most goods were sold through small stores that were locally owned.”

Early articles in The Journal discussed local economic issues, such as rising tariffs on products such as iron.

There also was political news that discussed local matters and the happenings of the Midwestern state legislatures.

Readers also could find items of interest to the various ethnic groups in the lumber community.

“Most newspapers ... were probably the primary source of entertainment or diversion for people before radio and television,” Lacy said.

Teachers at St. John Vianney want to make students aware that the newspaper remains a reliable source for nation, world and community news.“It makes them aware of outside areas,” said Judy Gansen, a social studies teacher. “They study Linden and North Branch, and they have to know where North Branch is located.

The evolution of The Journal depended greatly on the gatekeepers who ran the paper as publishers and editors.

Early publishers used the paper to promote their political views. When it was known as The Flint Weekly Journal, the paper was known as a Democratic newspaper.

And while social news was once a popular feature of historic newspapers, the profiles of ordinary citizens that often appear in today’s newspapers would have had a poor reception in The Journal’s early years.

“You didn’t need the profile article(s) because people talked, and the community was smaller,” Lacy said. “The changes in the paper over the last 125 years reflect the changes of the community and the decisions of all the publishers and editors who’ve run the paper. It always goes to the gatekeeper.”

Technology and population increases also brought changes to newspaper’s layout.

“To some degree, a lot of things changed with (the advent) of other media,” Lacy said. “Newspapers were no longer as important for national and international news. Those media took the breaking news element away. There’s still a lot of diversion and entertainment. But it’s not (as) readily available for entertainment as television.”

But the function of the paper remains the same: providing community information.

“Newspapers can provide the depth that television can’t,” Lacy said. “Newspapers pay attention to what’s going on, and the newsroom they have is the largest information-gathering resource in (the) community. They can dominate local Internet use. If they don’t, they’ll have a lot of competition.”

Shena Abercrombie started at The Journal in 1998. She can be reached at (810) 766-6307 or sabercrombie@flintjournal.com.