6. The telegraph led to the formation of the press services during the antebellum era
By 1850, America’s inland cities had grown to rival many of those of the east. In the 1850 census, Cincinnati, Ohio, was the 6th largest city in America. St. Louis, in the slave state of Missouri, was 8th. Other western cities were just beginning to experience the growth which would eventually rank them among the world’s great cities, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, San Francisco. Newspapers appeared which catered to the growing immigrant populations. Newspapers written in German, Italian, Hebrew, Irish, and, in New Orleans, French and Spanish were common. These newspapers relied on communication with each other, via telegraph, for the dissemination of news of national importance. Eventually, several joined together to form the Associated Press, with one newspaper per community linking with others in distant cities. AP dispatches allowed the western newspapers to report the news without relying on New York or Washington for information.
Once freed from the eastern newspapers, and their inevitable bias in reporting news events, western newspapers became more objective in their reporting. Their editorial pages remained slanted in the direction of their owners, but their news reporting appeared more straightforward. This contrasted them with the bulk of the eastern newspapers, which being closer to the political and business centers of the nation remained openly biased in their reporting. During the 1820s to the onset of the American Civil War, newspapers enjoyed immense influence and popularity, from the penny press (equivalent to today’s tabloids) to the large dailies in most cities. How much they were trusted by their readers was measured in their circulation rates and daily newsboy sales. Business and political leaders feared and respected them, due to their ability to sway the opinions of their readers.