Page 46 - Historical Dictionary of Political Communication in the United States

35
DEBATES
DAY, BENJAMIN (1810-1889) is credited with starting the first successful
"penny press" newspaper when he published the initial edition of the New York
Sun on Tuesday, September 3, 1833. Day, who served as publisher, editor, chief
pressman, and mailing clerk, began publishing the Sun from one small room.
One boy assisted him. The Sun was the 12th daily newspaper in New York. All
the others cost six cents. A number of other attempts at penny papers had failed.
However, while working at the Journal of Commerce, Day developed the for-
mula for a successful penny paper: it had to have interesting stories and lots of
advertising. Thus, the Sun devoted more space to Susan Allen, "who smoked
a cigar and danced on the street," than to a visit by Henry Clay. Day tried to
show his prosperity by publishing advertisements on his front page. For the first
edition, in fact, Day republished advertisements that had been regularly appear-
ing in other papers. Many page 1 ads dealt with shipping, since Day was com-
mitted to pleasing ship captains, who, in turn, provided Day with news from
outside New York. Day, 23 years old when he began publishing the Sun, printed
1,000 copies of his first edition. All of them sold. By December, circulation
reached 4,000, and a year later it was 10,000. On August 20, 1836, less than
three years after the first Sun was published, Day claimed that his newspaper's
circulation was more than that of all 11 six-cent newspapers in New York com-
bined.

SOURCE: Francis B. Whitlock, "Two New Yorkers: Editor and Sea Captain 1833,"
Newcomen Address, 1945.
Wayne Wanta

DEBATES are the most common form of political communication used between
political candidates to discuss the issues, present their platform, and poke holes
in the opposition's arguments. While people tend to think of debates in presi-
dential campaigns and date them from the televised Kennedy-Nixon debates of
1960, debates have been used much more widely. Some are not televised, but
many are, even at the local level.
Typically, one political candidate will challenge another to a debate, con-
ducted publicly, or a special interest group or television network will invite
speakers to participate. Sometimes they are pure debates following accepted
rules of debating, but more often there is a moderator or panel of moderators
to ask questions or to take questions from the audience.
For political candidates, it is a chance to speak directly to the public without
the mass media's objectivity or spin. It also is an opportunity for a candidate
to reach voters of the opposite political party who might otherwise ignore him
or her. The debate format makes the voter watch the candidate he or she doesn't
favor in order to watch the one he or she does favor.
SOURCE: Jay M. Shafritz, The HarperCollins Dictionary of American Government and
Politics, 1992.
Jacqueline Nash Gifford