Concept
penny press
A type of newspaper that appeared in American cities in the 1830s: sold on the street for one cent, financed by advertising and turning to local and human-interest news.
The penny press is the name given to the kind of newspaper that began with The Sun, published in New York in 1833. The price was one cent, whereas the six-cent party papers relied on yearly subscriptions. The penny press was sold one copy at a time on the street, drew its income from advertising, and targeted working and middle-class readers .
The content changed too: court and police reports, local events and human stories moved to the front . According to Michael Schudson this shift cannot be explained only by new technology or literacy; it was a product of what he calls a “democratic market society”, and it settled the very notion of “news” in journalism .
Example
(Hypothetical example.) If the paper you buy for a cent on your way to work tells you about a case heard in court last night, that is the content logic of the penny press.