Before Fake News, before Yellow Journalism, there was Benjamin Day, who ran a newspaper called The Sun. The Sun was started on September 3rd, 1833 with a revolutionary new business model: "Resell the attention of the audience otherwise known as advertising" (Timothy Wu, The Attention Merchants). Before The Sun, newspapers were a form of media, only for the elite. The stories typically focused on three areas: politics, business, and reviews (books and plays). This changed with Benjamin Day who focused on creating stories about real people, but with a twist. Here's how The Sun forever changed the media industry.
The Penny Press, a newspaper that sold for one cent. The typical newspaper in 1833 cost six cents. The everyday man couldn't... (read 723 more words →)