The Structure of Media in New York City

INTRODUCTION

Two of the major symbols of the information age are electronic media and world cities. Both reflect the centralizing tendencies of telecommunications technologies on urban economic and social systems. New York City is well-known as a world communications capital where the nation's leading publishing firms, broadcast television networks, and advertising agencies are based. Although advances in technology have led to the creation of international communications companies that distribute news and entertainment around the world, New York City has an elaborate system of local communications - encompassing ethnic and community newspapers, and radio, television, and cable stations - that is essential to the everyday life of New Yorkers. The media in New York City can be characterized as consisting of three types: a) the mass, city-wide media that also serve the surrounding metropolitan area; b) the local community or neighborhood media that serve distinct geographic areas within New York City; and c) media designed to serve specific racial, ethnic and cultural groups.

The city's ethnically and culturally diverse population has fostered a complex structure of print, radio, and television media that provides an alternative to that provided by the dominant city-wide media. In view of the fact that individuals rely on the media to convey information and clarify events, it is essential to understand the different images of New York that are provided by media within New York City. Moreover, as this chapter shows, different population groups are served by different kinds of media. Despite the trend towards the centralization of media. New York City has developed a robust local communications infrastructure that presents a countervailing trend to the consolidation of news operations in advanced industrial countries.

CITY-WIDE MEDIA

New York City, with four daily city-wide newspapers, is one of the few cities in the United States with competitive newspapers. It is important to note that New York City has a long tradition of multiple newspapers dating back more than a century. In the 1890s, paid advertising began to absorb the printing costs of newspapers, resulting in the penny-paper. New York City at that time had 29 papers, with an average circulation of 92,000. Hearst's Journal and Pulitzer's World each claimed circulations exceeding one million. Yet the late- 1800s witnessed an influx of immigrants whose interests were not reflected in the pre-tabloidesque World and Journal, and who barely spoke, much less read, English. Consequently, many foreign language publications were established, some of which continue today, such as the Jewish Forward and Il Progresso.

The consolidation of ownership in The Newspaper industry has resulted in fewer than two dozen corporations owning almost all of the 1,676 daily newspapers in the United States. It should be added that this is part of a broader trend in media ownership: 38 companies control over half of The Newspaper, magazine, television, book publishing, and motion picture industries.(1) The demise of major urban daily newspapers in the last two decades can also be attributed to several factors: the rise of radio and television; the movement of middle-class subscribers to the suburbs; and the decline of retail store advertising in central cities. In the 1960s, several major daily newspapers went out of business, including The New York Herald Tribune, The New York World Telegram & Sun, and The New York Journal-American. At the same time, suburban papers such as Newsday on Long Island and the Bergen County Record in New Jersey flourished, and the remaining city newspapers created new suburban sections to attract suburban readers and advertisers.

The Major Daily Newspapers

The four major daily newspapers in New York City have an aggregate circulation in the metropolitan region of approximately 4.6 million; however, they differ considerably in the share of their circulation that is based in New York City (see Table 1). More than two- thirds of The New York Post's sales occur in New York City, but only 56 percent of the New York Daily News, 34 percent of The New York Times, and 15 percent of Newsday's sales occur in New York City. These figures - which are inflated due to the inclusion of newspapers bought by suburban commuters - indicate that the so-called dominant daily newspapers serve markets not limited to New York City and must adapt their news coverage accordingly.

Table 1: Circulation of Major Daily Newspapers

Newspaper Total Circulation NYC Circulation NYC as % of Total Daily News New York Newsday New York Post New York Times 1,500,000 1,218,000 644,057 1,235,636 844,000 178,000 353,377 423,384 56 15 70 34

Source: Telephone Surveys with Newspapers

Each paper has a distinctive approach to The News, reflecting the socioeconomic characteristics and geographic location of its readers (see Table 2). The New York Times is oriented towards a college-educated, white, upper-middle and upper income readership. The newspaper's front page emphasizes national and international events, as well as scientific breakthroughs, economic trends, or significant local events. New York City and regional news are concentrated in the "Metropolitan Section," which is oriented towards the city and the surrounding metropolitan region. The coverage of international and national news at The New York Times has long superseded local news. More than 25 years ago, Arthur Sulzberger, in the introduction to A.M. Rosenthal's book, Thirty-Eight Witnesses, observed:

It is often forgotten - I think sometimes by ourselves [at The New York Times]-that we are above all a community newspaper. We are The New York Times, not the Times of London or of Los Angeles or of Washington. ...Sometimes we suffer from Afghanistanitis - the theory that what happens in exotic places is somehow more important than what happens in Queens.(2)

Table 2 shows the total circulation of the four major daily newspapers throughout the New York Metropolitan Area, in addition to New York City's percentage of the total. As Ed Diamond has noted, many New Yorkers read more than one newspaper, with one-fourth of The New York Times readers also looking at The New York Post and almost one-third of the Post's readers also reading The Daily News.

Table 2: Reader Profile

A. Race of Readers, by Newspaper (%)   White Black Other* The New York Times New York Newsday New York Post Daily News 77.2 67.9 66.9 63.9 18.2 27.3 28.7 31.4 4.6 4.8 4.4 4.6 *no further breakdown available B. Median Household Income of Newspaper Readers, by Newspaper The New York Times New York Newsday New York Post Daily News $40,500 $37,200 $35,000 $30,900

Source: Scarborough Research

The New York Post, once the premier liberal newspaper in New York City, has undergone two ownership changes in the past two decades. According to journalist James Ledbetter, former Post owner Rupert Murdoch "successfully created a right-wing mouthpiece out of the traditionally liberal tab."(3) The Post, with a circulation of about 453,000, has had difficulty in generating a strong advertising base. (See Chart 1.) Under the recent ownership of realtor Peter Kalikow, The Post has brought in new editors, and has expanded its real estate and local coverage. The Daily News is the "only [New York City] tabloid in the black."(4) Owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Company, The News' profits in 1987 reached $12 million, less profitable than The New York Times' $196 million profit, but with the largest circulation of the city's dailies. Further, The Daily News makes an effort to cover community news with some emphasis on blacks and Hispanics, having lost many of its former white ethnic readers who moved to the suburbs. It has a blue-collar readership, though it contains fewer stories of arrests and crime than The Post. In addition, The Daily News includes an insert with local news for each borough, as well as a Sunday magazine, Vista, written in English though geared to, and distributed in, targeted Hispanic communities throughout New York City's five boroughs (with the exception of Staten Island). The News has more black and Hispanic reporters than the other major dailies.

New York Newsday, owned by The Times-Mirror Corporation, entered into the city's tabloid competition in 1985 as an extension of its parent paper, which has a circulation exceeding one million on Long Island. New York Newsday has attracted nearly one-third of the city's total newspaper advertising dollars, and its circulation has increased steadily. Most copies are sold in Queens (110,000), while the paper's circulation is less than 70,000 in Brooklyn and Manhattan combined. The readership of New York Newsday is predominantly white and middle-class, second to The New York Times in median income.(5) Newsday has built a strong local staff that seriously covers municipal and community news, filling a gap that the other daily newspapers continue to ignore.

City-wide Television and Radio

Just as New York City has a relative abundance of daily newspapers, so does the city have a considerable number of broadcast television stations. New York City residents can receive fifteen, and in some cases, sixteen television stations without subscribing to cable television. There are four network-owned stations: WCBS, Channel 2; WNBC, Channel 4; WNYW, Channel 5; and WABC, Channel 7. There are two independent channels: Channels 9 and II, WWOR an WPIX, respectively. There are six public television stations, five of which are broadcast on UHF, including one based on Long Island and one in New Jersey. In addition, there are two New Jersey-based Spanish language television stations, Channels 41 and 47, plus Channel 55, broadcast from Long Island. Finally, there is a low- power television station, LPTV-44, that runs "alternative programming" and can be received in a few areas of New York City.

One reason for the plethora of broadcast television stations is that New York City is located within the nation's largest "area of dominant influence" (ADI), the technical name for a regional television market. While the New York ADI has 6.8 million ADI TV households, New York City accounts for only 42 percent of the television households within the region, reflecting the need for television stations to balance city and suburban news and editorial coverage. In fact, organizations in Northern New Jersey and on Long Island have protested the lack of adequate news coverage of their suburban counties, leading to the creation of suburban news bureaus by some of the major television stations.

New York City is served by 38 radio stations, 15 AM stations and 23 FM stations, including stations licensed in the nearby New Jersey communities of Secaucus and Newark. The capacity of radio to reach highly targeted audiences is demonstrated by the presence in New York City of eight stations with a virtually all-black listenership (encompassing a variety of formats), four Spanish stations, and one sports station. Moreover, several stations provide foreign language programming, which will be discussed later in this chapter.

Foreign Language and Ethnic Media in New York City

New York is a city in which minorities constitute a majority of the population; unlike Philadelphia, Detroit, or Washington, D.C., there is no single minority group that is numerically predominant. Tobier notes that one-fourth of New Yorkers are foreign-born, and that figure is expected to increase by the year 2000, with an estimated 100,000 immigrants locating within the city annually. The mainstream media has yet to respond to the increase in New York City's immigrant population, and an extensive foreign language media has developed to serve these immigrants. This study identified eighty foreign language newspapers in the five boroughs. (See Appendix A.) Most of the papers operate on a weekly basis, with the notable exception of the Korean papers, which are all dailies. Many of the non-English papers that traditionally served the eastern and southern European immigrant population are no longer published. Still, four Lithuanian papers continue to be published, along with two Russian, and five Yiddish/Jewish newspapers.

Economic, demographic, and cultural factors influence the number and type of newspapers produced for each ethnic group. In the Korean community, some of the local Korean papers receive funds from the homeland. While language itself is a factor for all non-English speaking people in New York City, it is especially significant for those groups, such as the Chinese, whose alphabet and native tongue differ fundamentally from Romance languages. Moreover, Chinese papers are split into pro-Taiwan and pro-Mainland, as well as progressive and traditional, orientations. Yet language is only one. factor, for cultural and ethnic identity influence the strength of the four Irish papers (three weeklies and one published three days per week), with a combined weekly circulation of 156,000.

The foreign language press acts as a "facilitator" for the thousands of immigrants who settle in the city annually, providing useful information about employment, immigration laws, housing, and English language instruction. The New York Times reported that "the ethnic press derives more of its readership from the fine-print material in the back of the paper than it does from its front page."(6) Ilsoo Kim argues that the Korean press in New York augments Korean small businesses by furnishing information on tax guidelines, accounting, and other commercial issues. Further, Korean examples of Horatio Alger success stories help to reinforce the entrepreneurial spirit.(7)

Most of the Korean newspapers are flown daily to Kennedy Airport from Kimpo International Airport in South Korea. The New York offices then add local news and advertisements; many are distributed on a subscription basis only.(8) A large proportion of Korean immigrants are college-educated and highly literate. By contrast, the Haitian population is less literate, and therefore the handful of weekly Creole newspapers are less important than Creole radio programs as an integrative force for immigrants.(9)

New York City's Latino population, estimated at 25 percent of the total population,(10) has two daily newspapers. El Diario-La Prensa and Noticias del Mundo, neither of which is owned by Latinos. El Diario is owned by The Gannett Company, (whose 93 newspapers yield a total circulation of six million).(11) News World Communications, the publishing arm of Reverend Sun Myung Moon, owns Noticias.(12) In addition to the two major Latino dailies, several Spanish weeklies are published in New York City, and an array of imported papers are available at newsstands.

There are 22 daily foreign language publications, only two of which include sections in English. (See Table 3.) Fourteen dailies were established after 1970, and, as Appendix B shows, ten of these are foreign language publications, along with one Korean paper entirely in English. There are seven Korean daily papers, and seven Chinese. Certain foreign language dailies serve the entire U.S., such as the Chinese Singtao Daily News. Despite this, the readership of such dailies is predominantly New York City-based.

The organization of ethnic and immigrant groups influences the number, format, and content of media, as do financial considerations. Some papers offer world news combined with local advertising; others include news of the homeland, perhaps combined with local news; while still others contain local content only.

Table 3: Daily Newspapers in New York City

Description Newspaper Yr. Est'd Circ. Publication Site Black The Daily Challenge* 1972 46,000 Brooklyn Business Brooklyn Daily Bulletin** The Journal of Commerce & Commercial** The Wall Street Journal 1954 1827 1889 5,250 20,838 168,365 Brooklyn Manhattan Manhattan Chinese Centre Daily News China Daily News* China Tribune International Daily News Sing Tao Jih Pao (Sing Tao Daily News) United Journal** World Journal 1982 1940 1943 1982 1965 1952 1976 30,000 25,000 10,000 10,000 36,000 32,000 30,000 Queens Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Queens General New York City Tribune New York Daily News (SMSA circ.) -- city-wide circulation New York Newsday New York Post (SMSA circ.) -- city-wide circulation New York Times (SMSA circ.) -- city-wide circulation Staten Island Advance Wall Street Journal 1983 1919 1985 1801 1851 1886 1889 1,500 1,500,000 844,000 178,000 644,057 453,377 1,235,636 423,384 74,867 112,920 Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Staten Island Manhattan Greek Ethnekos Kerix (National Herald) Proini (Morning)* 1915 1976 35,000 37,000 Queens Queens Hispanic El Diario-La Prensa** Noticias del Mundo** 1961 1980 64,000 52,000 Manhattan Manhattan Italian II Progresso Italo-Americano La Voce Italiana 1880 1926 33,500 40,000 Emerson, NJ Manhattan Korean Dong-A llbo Korea Central Daily News Korea Chosun The Korea Herald/USA* Korea News* Korean American Daily News Sae Gai Times (World Times) 1972 1975 1981 1953 1967 1986 1982 10,000 13,000 50,000 5,000 15,000 7,000 12,000 Manhattan Queens Manhattan Manhattan Queens Queens Manhattan Polish Nowy Deziennik (Polish Daily News) 1971 20,000 Manhattan Political People's Daily World 1986 10,000 Manhattan Russian Novoye Russkoye Slovo* 1910 40,931 Manhattan

Sources: Urban Research Center

The Black Press

There are five black weekly newspapers in New York City, plus one black daily. The Daily Challenge, which is published in Brooklyn, and claims a circulation exceeding 40,000. The combined circulation of the black weeklies is just over 200,000 (see Appendix C). The Amsterdam News and the City Sun are the most influential of the group. Though the smaller black newspapers emphasize local news. The Amsterdam News, City Sun, and The Daily Challenge cover local as well as national and international, primarily black, news.

A New York Newsday survey of black New Yorkers showed that 23.5 percent felt that black-generated media was their most important source of news and information. Almost half (47 percent) indicated that black media provided one of the news sources on which they relied.(13) In addition, there are community papers that may not fall directly into a black classification, yet whose local basis and readership are predominantly black. This is not to suggest, however, that the readership of black papers is uniquely Afro-American.

The principal media for blacks in New York City is radio, not television or print media. Newspapers rank second in impact and prominence for the black community, and television and cable stations present almost no local black programming. Limited financial resources in a television media market dominated by national broadcasting firms limit black entry into television ownership in New York.

The major daily newspapers have been criticized for their poor representation of blacks and other minorities on their news staff, although efforts are underway at several newspapers to ameliorate the situation. While there are black and Latino newscasters on local television news programs, the stories they cover often reinforce stereotypes of blacks as criminals, drug addicts, and sports luminaries. In Minorities and Media, Wilson and Gutierrez note that the development of the mass media in the United States, which directed programming to the broadest population possible, ruled out the formation of small media outlets that would serve specific groups:

As media strove to accumulate large audiences, they developed content that would attract the widest audience possible and offend the fewest people. Rather than including a variety of small outlets, each addressing the needs of segments of the society, media in the United States became synonymous with the mass audience. ...[Since] news people think of minorities as outside the American system, the actions of minorities must be reported as adversarial because they are seen as threats to the social order.(14)

Spanish, Black, and Foreign Language Radio

Commercial radio in New York City serves as a vital communications outlet for blacks and Latinos in the City of New York. One official at a Latino radio station stated, "This is only a foreign language station if you still consider Spanish a foreign language in New York. We do not." Further, only one of the four Latino radio stations has even partial ownership by Latinos, the three others owned entirely by non-Latino companies.(15) Daily News reporter, Juan Gonzalez, explains that:

[Some Latino political leaders feel that] the Latino community, which in our information age desperately needs education geared to lifting it out of its economic quagmire, is instead being milked by farmers who couldn't give a damn about the cow.(16)

The New York Times reports that black talk radio is emerging as an important new medium for blacks throughout the nation, and provides a "kind of regular town meeting of the air..."(17) Acting as a "facilitator" for political and community organization, some black talk radio programs:

have an ability to penetrate black neighborhoods and elicit instant response in a way that evokes comparisons with the historic roles of the black church as a kind of communications switchboard and forum for community action.(18)

In New York City, WLIB(AM), owned by Inner City Broadcasting, is the foremost black talk-radio station. All programs are geared specifically towards black, Caribbean, and Latino communities. WLIB, which calls itself "The Nation's First Black Superstation," runs talk and news shows Monday through Thursday. These range from news programs and interviews to the reporting of West Indian cricket scores. From Friday until Sunday evening, the station metamorphoses, carrying Caribbean music and information, primarily Jamaican, in addition to several hours of Haitian music on Saturday mornings.

The New York Times has described WLIB as "an important vehicle for reaching blacks." In fact, many public figures seek access to the black community through WLIB, due to its overwhelmingly black listenership. New York Newsday suggested that, "Its (WLIB) format is so attuned to the mood of black New York that last year the Police Department secretly monitored the station as a means of collecting information on black activists."(19) WLIB runs counter to the mainstream media, treating blacks seriously in its coverage. As David Lampel, Senior Vice President of Inner City Broadcasting, told a Newsday reporter, "'The black community is covered [by the mainstream media] as though you were covering a foreign country.'"(20)

The timeliness of radio enhances WLIB as a daily source for news and information, since the two major black newspapers, City Sun and Amsterdam News, circulate on a weekly basis.(21) Lampel commented that WLIB allows "blacks to communicate with one another without going through the filter of someone else. [The station] acts as an electronic marketplace of African and African-American ideas."(22) Yet WLIB's listenership is equivalent to just twenty percent of that of New York's top news station, WINS.

A handful of public and not-for-profit radio stations transmits foreign language programming. Most foreign language radio time falls into what The Broadcasting/Cablecasting Yearbook calls "special programming" (i.e., runs under 20 hours per week).(23) This study found only one for-profit radio station, WEVD, with regularly scheduled "special programming." FM college radio stations in New York City also carry non-English and ethnic radio shows, especially WFUV of Fordham University, the Medgar Evers College Radio Project, WNYE, and Columbia University's WKCR.

Fordham University's WFUV, with the largest wattage of the three college stations, reaches the greatest potential number of listeners with more than 23 hours of "special programming" each week. Columbia University's radio station, WKCR, broadcasts 22.5 hours of special programming per week, including 7.5 hours of Latin shows, Caribbean/West Indian music, both Cantonese and Mandarin content, (East) Indian selections, and several hours of African music. Medgar Evers College Radio Project, WNYE, under the jurisdiction of the New York City Board of Education, is geared to the neighboring Hispanic, black-American, and West Indian populations; its programs include eight hours of Caribbean, six hours of Spanish, music and talk; and roughly six hours entirely in Creole.

WEVD(FM) is the only for-profit mainstream radio station with a substantial number of hours per week devoted to ethnic and foreign language programming. WEVD complements its usual Oldies/Big Band format with almost forty hours of non-English programming, in addition to one half hour of Irish and several hours of "Anglo-Jewish" content. When WEVD is not directly broadcast, it allows broadcasters to purchase time, the bulk of which is taken up by Greek and Jewish spots (21 hours combined).

WNWK-FM, a noteworthy New York City radio station, claims to be "the only multi-ethnic station in the tri-state area." The station transmits in 27 different languages, ranging from 34.5 and 22.5 hours per week in Greek and Italian, respectively, to one hour or less segments in Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Farsi, Macedonian, Serbian, Slovak, and Urdu. The WNWK program guide explicitly differentiates among Latinos. Rather than treating Latinos as a homogeneous group, WNWK distinguishes among varied Hispanic groups, such as Argentine, Chilean, Dominican, Ecuadorian, and Peruvian.

A relatively new technological innovation, the "subsidiary communications carrier," or SCA, provides several ethnic and foreign language broadcasting companies with access to the radio. These subcarrier radio systems are linked to the FM transmitters of noncommercial stations. Only not-for-profit stations may lease the FM transmitters. The Federal Communications Commission authorizes SCA subcarriers. They operate on a full-time basis, and in much the same way that Muzak has been piped into doctors' offices and shopping malls for years. There are several Chinese (Mandarin and Cantonese), one West Indian, and two Italian, subcarriers in New York. To receive the SCA frequency, customers must purchase a receiver that picks up the subcarrier frequency only. This is, then, a one-time expense, ranging from $100 to $140 per unit. One Chinese broadcasting company, transmitted through the SCA, reported that it has sold over 10,000 receivers in the New York metropolitan area.

UHF Television: Programming for Blacks, Latinos and Immigrants

Five UHF television stations also broadcast programming that serves the city's diverse ethnic and racial groups; WNYC, Channel 31; WNYE, Channel 25; WNJU, Channel 47; WXTV, Channel 41; and LPTV, Channel 44, New York's only operating low- power television station. (See Table 4.) WNYC, Channel 31, a public broadcasting station, operated under the auspices of the City of New York, programs forty hours of ethnic and foreign language programming each week. An additional sixteen leased hours are devoted to Italian, and twelve to Japanese. The Italian shows include local and Italian news, films, and live soccer matches transmitted from Europe. WNYC's Japanese programming consists of news, entertainment, and Japanese language instruction. The four hours of Chinese programming at Channel 31 are broadcast in either Cantonese with Mandarin subtitles, or vice versa, which is common in all Chinese television in the city. The News is both local and Taiwan-related. In fact, sixty percent of the programming is produced in Taiwan. Channel 31 also carries programs geared to East Indian, Greek, Polish, and Brazilian (in both English and Portuguese) groups in New York. Channel 25 of the New York City Board of Education, WNYE, broadcasts black television programs produced for a national audience, which rarely address issues specific to New York City.

Table 4: UHF Television: Foreign Language and Ethnic Programming in NYC

Channel 31 WNYC Channel 25 WNYE Channel 47 WNJU Channel 41 WXTV Channel 44 LPTV Total Hrs/Wk Asian     3.5     3.5 Bangli         1 1 Brazilian 0.5         0.5 Carribbean Indian         1 1 Chinese 4 7       11 East Indian 1         1 Farsi         1 1 Filipino     0.5   1 1.5 Greek 4   2.5   1 7.5 Hatian     2     2 Hebrew         4 4 Italian 16         16 Japanese 12   3     15 Korean   5 1.5     6.5 Polish 2.5         2.5 Russian         1.5 1.5 Spanish     89.5 133.5 16 239 Yugoslav     0.5     0.5 Total Hours: 40 12 109 133.5 26.5 305

Source: Urban Research Center, NYU

Although Channel 47, WNJU, is located in northern New Jersey, it joins Channel 41, WXTV, in serving the New York Hispanic community. Channel 41 is owned by Spanish International Television (SIN), which broadcasts in metropolitan regions with substantial Spanish-speaking concentrations throughout the country. SIN broadcasts 133.5 hours per week, entirely in Spanish. WXTV, though predominantly Hispanic, also transmits in seven other languages, including Tagalog (Filipino), Chinese, Korean and Serbo-Croatian.

One UHF station that functions differently from the above public and Hispanic stations is LPTV-Channel 44, the only low-power television station currently operating in New York City. The station performs the unique function of providing a sort of public access not achieved through cable television. At $120 per airtime hour, Channel 44 is open to broadcasters sixty hours each week. Programming includes Farsi, Bangli, and Caribbean Indian, in addition to Hebrew, Greek, Russian, English, and religious-oriented content. Its sixteen Spanish hours are predominantly Argentine, Columbian, and Dominican. According to one station official:

We…found there was a lot of interest [in LPTV] from Latino groups. That surprises some people-they think New York's Hispanics are served by Channels 41 and 47, until you tell them that there are Spanish-speaking people in New York from a dozen countries and every kind of social and political background.(24)

LPTV-44 is further distinguished for its show, Out in the '80s, the city's "only regularly scheduled over-the-air program aimed at the gay community."(25)

The Local Community Press

The local community press provides coverage of events in New York's neighborhoods not available in the major dailies or on the dominant radio and television stations. As Badgikian argues, given the pressures of advertising to appeal to the wealthiest and broadest-based audience possible, "without being deliberately racist or class-prejudiced, newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters de-emphasize the content that will be relevant or interesting to the less affluent and the older population."(26) There is no way that the city's dominant print and television can adequately cover all areas and population groups located within the city. In those cases where local television news has been expanded, there is a strong preference for using entertainment and feature stories that are of interest to the broadest possible audience within the metropolitan region. Further, the major newspapers and television stations are headquartered in Manhattan, and unless a winning lottery is purchased, a highway collapses, or a vicious crime occurs in the other four boroughs, relatively few news stories originate outside of Manhattan.

Staten Island is the only borough that has its own daily newspaper, the Staten Island Advance, owned by the Newhouse chain. The other boroughs rely on weekly community papers for print media that explicitly covers their geographic area. It should be noted, though, that both The Daily News and New York Newsday include borough-oriented inserts in papers circulated in Brooklyn and Queens.

Within the past two decades, there has been a resurgence in grassroots print media in New York City. (See Appendix B.) Excluding the countless weekly shoppers, there are more than sixteen community weeklies in the five boroughs, along with two monthlies and one bi-weekly publication, that were established after 1970, and whose combined circulation exceeds 700,000. (See Table 5.)

Table 5: Community Weekly Newspapers by Borough

Newspaper Year Established Circulation Bronx Bronx News Bronx Press-Review Co-op City News Co-Op City Times Parkchester News The Riverdale Press Total Weekly Circulation 1973 1939 1968 1969 1971 1950 20,000 16,000 15,000 20,000 14,000 14,500 99,500 Brooklyn Bay News Bay Ridge Courier Brooklyn Bensonhurst News Brooklyn Graphic Brooklyn Heights Press Brooklyn Heights Press B'klyn Home Reporter & Sunset News The Brooklyn Paper Brooklyn Phoenix Newspaper Brooklyn Record The Brooklyn Spectator Canarsic Courier, Inc. Canarsie Digest Flatbush Life Oreenpoint Gazette/Advertiser Kings Courier Total Weekly Circulation 1945 1978 1955 1958 1937 1938 1955 1978 1973 1937 1933 1921 1959 1956 1928 1951 20,700 10,300 *** 20,000 18,500 19,800 *** *** 18,000 8,500 *** 13,750 11,100 13,800 8,000 9,200 181,350 Manhattan Battery News* Chelsea Clinton News East Side Express New York Heights Inwood Our Town Newspaper Town & Village The Villager The Westsider Total Weekly Circulation 1987 1940 1976 1972 1974 1947 1933 1972 19,000 12,000 12,500 5,800 131,000 9,000 14,000 15,000 210,300 Queens Bayside Times The Forum of South Queens Glendale Register Leader Observer Little Neck/Glen Oaks Ledger Long Island City Journal North Shore News Queens Chronicle Queens Ledger Queens Tribune Ridgewood Times Rockaway Press Western Queens Gazette Woodside Herald Total Weekly Circulation 1935 1977 1935 1909 1918 1987 1979 1980 1873 1970 1908 1985 1982 1936 16,500 15,000 10,000 8,000 7,000 10,000 12,000 70,000 15,000 100,000 20,000 10,000 35,000 14,000 342,500 Staten Island Star Reporter Staten Island Eagle** Staten Island Register** Total Weekly Circulation 1965 1987 1975 n/a 131,000 95,000 n/a

Source: Urban Research Center *bi-weekly **monthly ***information unavailable

Community weeklies also adapt rapidly to changes in their environment. For example, Battery News, a community newspaper originally created for residents of Battery Park City, has enlarged its market and circulation area to cover all of lower Manhattan below Canal Street as a result of the growing residential and commercial life in that part of New York City. Most of New York's community newspapers provide readers with stories about events within their neighborhoods and local issues such as crime and land use. New York City's four major dailies can give only limited coverage of the city's diverse neighborhoods, and usually on issues of city-wide importance, such as a local school board scandal, choosing a site for a prison or waste disposal plant, or high-rise development amidst a low-rise community.

Neighborhood weeklies include articles about local residents, calendars of community meetings and events, and other local interest stories. Such weeklies are also filled with advertisements by local merchants who can reach their customers without having to buy space in the city-wide dailies. In fact, advertising revenues from local businesses are vital to the economic health of local newspapers. Indeed, "the great majority of local weeklies are marginal financial operations."(27) Of course, the major daily newspapers also face advertising pressures, and supplements in education, real estate, and travel are designed to attract advertisers.

Although the local weeklies fill the "news vacuum" created by the lack of systematic community coverage in New York City's predominant newspapers, there is often a considerable gap in the quality of journalism. Many communities must rely on neighborhood publications for coverage of their communities. Frank Griffin, owner of Brooklyn's Home Reporter and Sunset News, states that, '"Brooklyn is virtually ignored by the dailies,'" and that the Daily News' borough inserts exist '"merely for advertising reasons,"' hardly providing an effective local news medium.(28)

No discussion of New York City's grass-roots media would be complete without a description of The Village Voice, a weekly newspaper formed in the 1950s that addresses city-wide and national issues. The Voice's coverage of municipal corruption and cultural trends provides a powerful alternative to the dominant media. In recent years, two new city-wide weekly newspapers have begun publication, 7 Days and The New York Observer, both of which focus principally on Manhattan-based events and personalities.

The functions that the community newspapers perform, namely, defining the community and filling the "news vacuum" with local coverage, serve other social and political functions as well. The neighborhood paper is a "facilitating mechanism," that helps the urban dweller to make sense out of a complex and often confusing environment.(29) Not all communities have their own newspapers. The presence of a community weekly can be attributed to several factors, such as the willingness of local merchants to invest advertising dollars to reach local readers, the sense of community cohesiveness possessed by local residents, and the fact that the city-wide media are too big to cover the diversity of small- scale communities within New York City.

Cable Television in New York City

New York City was one of the first cities in the United States to grant cable franchises. In 1971, during the Lindsay Administration, two cable television franchises were granted for Manhattan; it took more than fifteen years for cable franchises to be granted in the other four boroughs of New York City. Four major cable television franchises are discussed here: Manhattan Cable TV and Paragon Cable, which serve lower and upper Manhattan, respectively; American Cablevision of Queens (ACQ); and Brooklyn-Queens Cable (BQ), which services both Brooklyn and Queens. The Manhattan franchises have a combined subscribership in excess of 300,000 households and can provide up to 36 channels over the existing - and technologically outmoded - cable plant. The cable systems in the other four boroughs are at an early stage of development, but they have the technological capability to provide up to 99 channels of programming, although they now utilize approximately 70 channels. As Table 6 shows, all four cable companies offer some ethnic and foreign language programming, but the public and leased access stations do not serve as a full-fledged means of local community communications.

Table 6: Cable Television: Foreign Language and Ethnic Programming in NYC

Manhattan Cable Paragon Cable America Cablevison of Queens Brooklyn-Queens Cable BET* 168 168 168 168 Chinese 28   84 84 Greek     70 70 Indian     56 56 Jewish 3   3 3 Korean     84 84 Spanish 2   168 168

Source: Urban Research Center *Black Entertainment Television

Cable television, with significantly greater channel capacity than broadcast television, has the potential to provide population groups within cities with their own electronic channels of communication.(30) Cable television could be used to strengthen local communities within cities, by publicizing local events, providing an electronic forum to discuss neighborhood issues, serving as an advertising vehicle for local merchants, and by allowing elected officials to communicate with their local constituents.

All of the cable television systems include VHF and UHF channels as part of their basic service, and the improved UHF television reception with cable is important for the foreign language and public UHF stations. Black Entertainment Television (BET) is included in basic cable service, yet cable franchises report that many viewers have complained that BET does not offer enough specifically "black" programming. Manhattan Cable broadcasts 31 hours of locally-originated ethnic and foreign language programming per week. Ninety percent of this time (28 hours) is devoted to Apple Television (ATV), a Chinese broadcasting company that can only be received at an additional monthly charge from ACQ and BQ Cable. The other three hours are for Jewish programming. More than one-third of Paragon's public and leased access is used by blacks, and 35.1 percent, by Latinos.

American Cablevision of Queens (ACQ) is situated in an area of Queens where over half of the residents are minorities; 39 percent are foreign-born, 49 percent speak a foreign language, and nineteen percent do not speak English at all. By adding the five pay channels-The Korean Channel, Apple Television, Indian TV, The Greek Channel, and Galavision(31) - ACQ and BQ have increased cable subscriptions, since basic cable is required to receive a pay channel. Clearly, cable has been able to respond to the growing foreign born population, especially in the outer boroughs. The proposed merger of Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. would also affect New Yorkers since the ownership of the largest cable systems in New York City would be under the control of the new firm created through the merger.

CONCLUSION

This chapter highlights the growing disparity between the traditional television and print media that serve New York City and its surrounding counties and the groups that make up the majority of New York City's population. The major daily newspapers and broadcast television and radio stations have a limited capability to serve New York City's diverse ethnic and minority groups, and, as a result, there has been a remarkable growth in new media, encompassing print, radio, and television. Despite the trends towards the centralization of news and media sources, there is a diversity of information sources in New York City that serves the various population groups within the city. The evidence presented here indicates that Hispanic and Asian groups have been far more able to utilize new television channels and print media than black groups. Moreover, there is a growing bifurcation of the media, with the city-wide print and television increasingly serving the affluent middle class within the city and surrounding region, while radio and community newspapers serve specific ethnic and minority groups. Certainly, one cannot rely on any single media source to convey an image of New York that is in accord with the political and social community within which New Yorkers live.

 

Notes

1. Bagdikian, 1987, p. 19.

2. A.M. Rosenthal, Thirty-Eight Witnesses (New York: New York Times, 1964), p. 8.

3. James Ledbetter, "Tab Wars," in 7 Days, June 1, 1988, p. 6.

4. Ibid.

5. Jon Katz, "It Came from Queens," in 7 Days, June 1, 1988, p. 8.

6. Scardino, "A Renaissance for Ethnic Papers," in The New York Times, Aug. 22, 1988, p. D8.

7. Ilsoo Kim. "The Koreans: Small Business in an Urban Frontier," in New Immigrants in New York, ed. Nancy Foner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), p. 227.

8. Ibid. p. 236.

9. Susan Buchanan Stafford, "The Haitians: The Cultural Meaning of Race and Ethnicity," in New Immigrants in New York, ed. Nancy Foner (New York: Columbia University Press. 1987), p. 140.

10. Kasarda.

11. Bagdikian. 1987, p. 19.

12. Juan Gonzalez, "Not Masters of Our Media Fate," in Daily News, July 24, 1988, p. 14.

13. Barry Meier, "A Primary Source Outside Mainstream," in New York Newsday, April 13, 1988, p. 26.

14. Ibid., p. 38.

15. Gonzalez, 1988, p. 14.

16. Ibid.

17. William E. Schmidt, "Black Talk Radio: A Vital Force Is Emerging to Mobilize Opinion," The New York Times. March 31, 1989, p. Al.

18. Ibid.. p. A12.

19. Meier, p. 9.

20. Ibid.

21. E. R. Shipp, "WLIB: Radio 'Heartbeat' of Black Life. in The New York Times. Jan. 22. 1988, p. B3.

22. Ibid.

23. Broadcasting/Cablecasting Yearbook 1988.

24. Bruce Eder, "Channel 44: The Little Station That Could," in The Village Voice. May 24, 1988, p. 57.

25. Ibid.. p. 58.

26. Bagdikian. 1985, p. 109.

27. Jack Deacy, "What the Big Dailies Don't Tell You About What's Going On in the City," in New York, May 24, 1971, p. 41.

28. Ibid., p. 43.

29. Keith R. Stamm, Newspaper Use and Community Ties: Toward A Dynamic Theory (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp. 1985), p. 5

30. Stephen White, "Toward a Modest Experiment in Cable Television," in The Public Interest, Spring 1967.

31. Brian Moss, "Foreign, but Familiar," in Daily News, Feb. 14, 1988, p. II.

 

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Appendices

Appendix A: Foreign Language and Ethnic Newspapers Description Newspaper Year Est'd Circ. Frequency Pub. Site Arabic Action New AI-Hoda (nat'l circ.) 1969 1898 15,000 9,500 weekly monthly Manhattan Manhattan Armenian Armenian Reporter Hayastanyaitz Yegeghetzy (Armenian Church) 1967 1938 5,200 30,000 weekly weekly Queens Manhattan Black Big Red News City Sun New York Amsterdam News The Daily Challenge New York Voice The Black American 1975 1985 1909 1972 1959 1960 57,413 17,500 35,858 46,300 22,500 77,000 weekly weekly weekly daily weekly weekly Brooklyn Brooklyn Manhattan Brooklyn Queens Manhattan Brazilian The Brazilians 1972 35,000 monthly Manhattan Chinese Asian-American Times Centre Daily News China Daily News China Times China Tribune Eastern Times International Daily News Sing Tao Jih Pao (Sing Tao Daily News) United Journal World Journal 1987 1982 1940 1986 1943 1984 1982 1965 1952 1976 10,000 30,000 25,000 15,000 10,000 14,000 10,000 36,000 32,000 30,000 weekly daily daily weekly daily weekly daily daily dialy daily Queens Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Queens Colombian El Espectador *** *** *** Queens Ecuadorean Amazonas 1984 5,000 monthly Queens Estonian Vaba Eesti Sona (Free Estonian Word) 1949 4,000 weekly *** Filipino The Filipino Reporter Philippine News 1972 1966 12,000 13,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Jersey City, NJ Finnish New Yorkin Uutiset (NY News) 1906 2,100 weekly Brooklyn French France-Amerique Swiss American Review 1828 1882 35,000 3,500 weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan German Aufbau Staats-Zeitung und Herold Swiss American Review 1934 1834 1882 25,000 25,000 3,500 bi-weekly weekly weekly Manhattan Queens Manhattan Greek Campana Elliniki Foni (Hellenic Voice) Hellenic Times Ethnekos Kerix Orthodox Observer Proini (Morning) 1917 1972 1973 1915 1971 1976 9,300 90,000 15,000 35,000 *** 37,000 bi-weekly weekly weekly daily bi-weekly daily Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Hatian Haiti Observateur Haiti Progres La Voix d'Haiti 1970 1983 *** 40,000 *** *** weekly weekly weekly Brooklyn Brooklyn Queens Hebrew Hadoar Hebrew Weekly (Post) Lamishpaha, Hebrew Monthly 1921 1963 4,500 5,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Hispanic El Diario-La Prensa El Tiempo de New York Impacto Latin News La Voz Hispana Latin News Leader Nuevo Amanecer Noticias del Mundo Periodico Resumen Voz del Pueblo 1961 1965 1972 1978 *** 1982 1980 1975 *** 65,000 28,000 47,000 60,800 *** 10,000 52,000 14,000 *** daily weekly weekly weekly weekly weekly daily weekly daily Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Queens Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Manhattan Hungarian Amerikai Magyar Szo Hungarian Weekly Nepszava (People's Voice) 1954 1898 2,000 34,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Indian India Abroad News India 1970 1975 50,000 11,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Irish Irish Advocate Irish Echo The Irish People The Irish Voice 1893 1928 1973 1987 17,700 32,100 12,000 55,000 weekly 3x/week weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Israeli Israel Shelanu 1978 *** weekly Brooklyn Italian II Progresso Italo-Americano La Voce Italiana 1880 1926 33,500 40,000 daily daily Emerson, NJ Manhattan Japanese Japanese-American News New York Nichibei The New York Yorniuru 1945 1945 1977 1,500 1,600 14,000 weekly weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Jewish Jewish Forward Jewish Journal Jewish Press Jewish Week Morning Freiheit 1897 1971 1961 1976 1922 *** 37,000 148,653 85,000 *** weekly weekly weekly weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Brooklyn Brooklyn Manhattan Korean Dong-A llbo Korea Central Daily News Korea Chosun Korea News The Korea Herald/USA Korean American Daily News Sae Gai Times (World Times) 1972 1975 1927 1967 1953 1986 1982 10,000 13,000 50,000 15,000 5,000 7,000 12,000 daily daily daily daily daily daily daily Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan Latvian Latvian News Laiks 1949 2,000 semi-weekly Brooklyn Lithuanian Darbrninkas Laisve Tevyne (Fatherland) Vienybe (Unity) 1915 1911 1912 1886 2,000 *** 4,000 2,020 weekly weekly monthly bi-weekly Brooklyn *** Manhattan Brooklyn Norwegian Nordisk Tidende Nordst Jeman-Svea 1891 1891 6,000 3,500 weekly weekly Brooklyn Brooklyn Polish Nowy Deziennik Polish-American Review 1971 *** 20,000 22,000 daily weekly Manhattan Manhattan Russian Novoye Russkoye Slovo Russky Golos 1910 1917 40,931 3,000 daily weekly Manhattan Manhattan Swedish- Finnish Norden 1896 450 weekly Manhattan Swedish Nordst Jeman-Svea 1872 3,500 weekly Manhattan Turkish Hurnyet 1981 2,500 daily Manhattan Yiddish Algemeiner Journal (nat'l circ.) Das Yiddishe Licht Der Yid Jewish Forward Morning Freiheit Yiddisher Kernfer (NY) 1972 1958 1951 1897 1922 1906 212,000 3,600 14,500 - - 3,000 weekly weekly weekly weekly weekly weekly Manhattan Brooklyn Brooklyn Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan West Indian Carib News 1982 37,500 weekly Manhattan

 

Appendix B: Newspapers Established After 1970 Description Newspaper Yr. Est'd Circ. Frequency Pub. Site Black Big Red News City Sun The Daily Challenge 1975 1985 1972 57,413 17,500 46,300 weekly weekly daily Brooklyn Brooklyn Brooklyn Brazilian The Brazilians 1972 35,000 monthly Manhattan Business Nat'l Bus. Employment Wkly. Crain's New York Business 1980 1985 35,000 30,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Chinese Asian-American Times Centre Daily News China Times Eastern Times International Daily News World Journal 1987 1982 1986 1984 1982 1976 10,000 30,000 15,000 14,000 10,000 30,000 weekly daily weekly weekly daily daily Queens Queens Queens Queens Manhattan Queens Colombian El Espectador *** *** *** Queens Ecuadorean Amazonas 1984 5,000 monthly Queens Filipino The Filipino Reporter 1972 12,000 weekly Manhattan General New York Newsday New York City Tribune 1985 1976 175,000 17,500 daily daily Manhattan Manhattan Greek Elliniki Foni (Hellenic Voice) Hellenic Times Orthodox Observer Proini (Morning) 1972 1973 1971 1976 90,000 15,000 *** 37,000 weekly weekly bi-weekly daily Queens Manhattan Manhattan Queens Hatian Haiti Observateur Haiti Progres 1970 1983 40,000 *** weekly weekly Brooklyn Brooklyn Hispanic Impacto Latin News La Voz Hispana Noticias del Mundo 1972 1978 1980 47,000 60,800 52,000 weekly weekly daily Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Indian India Abroad News India 1970 1975 50,000 11,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Irish The Irish People The Irish Voice 1973 1987 12,000 55,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Israeli Israel Shelanu 1978 *** weekly Brooklyn Italian II Progresso Italo-Americano La Voce Italiana 1880 1926 33,500 40,000 daily daily Emerson, NJ Manhattan Japanese The New York Yorniuru 1977 14,000 weekly Manhattan Jewish Jewish Journal Jewish Week 1971 1976 37,000 85,000 weekly weekly Manhattan Brooklyn Korean Dong-A llbo Korea Central Daily News Korea Chosun Korean American Daily News Sae Gai Times (World Times) 1972 1975 1981 1986 1982 10,000 13,000 50,000 7,000 12,000 daily daily daily daily daily Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan Polish Nowy Deziennik 1971 20,000 daily Manhattan Political National Alliance Newspaper People's Daily World 1979 1986 50,000 10,000 weekly daily Manhattan Manhattan Real Estate The Manhattan Cooperator 1981 135,000 monthly Manhattan Turkish Hurnyet 1981 2,500 daily Manhattan Yiddish Algemeiner Journal (nat'l circ.) 1972 212,000 weekly Manhattan West Indian Carib News 1982 37,500 weekly Manhattan

 

Appendix C: Breakdown of Newspaper Circulations Description Newspaper Year Est'd Circ. Frequency Pub. Site Black The Daily Challenge 1972 46,300 daily Brooklyn   Total Daily Circulation:   46,300       Big Red News City Sun New York Amsterdam News New York Voice The Black American 1975 1985 1909 1959 1960 57,413 17,500 35,858 22,500 77,000 weekly weekly weekly weekly weekly Brooklyn Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Manhattan   Total Weekly Circulation:   210, 271     Chinese Centre Daily News China Daily News China Tribune International Daily News Sing Tao Jih Pao (Sing Tao Daily News) United Journal World Journal 1982 1940 1943 1982 1965 1952 1976 30,000 25,000 10,000 10,000 36,000 32,000 30,000 daily daily daily daily daily daily daily Queens Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Queens   Total Daily Circulation:   173,000       Asian-American Times China Times Eastern Times 1987 1986 1984 10,000 15,000 14,000 weekly weekly weekly Queens Queens Queens   Total Weekly Circulation:   39,000     Hispanic El Diario-La Prensa Noticias del Mundo Voz del Pueblo 1961 1980 *** 65,000 52,000 *** daily daily daily Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan   Total Daily Circulation:   117,000       El Tiempo de New York Impacto Latin News La Voz Hispana Latin News Leader Nuevo Amanecer Periodico Resumen 1965 1972 1978 *** 1982 1975 28,000 47,000 60,800 *** 10,000 14,000 weekly weekly weekly weekly weekly weekly Manhattan Manhattan Manhattan Queens Brooklyn Queens   Total Weekly Circulation:   164,000     Korean Dong-A llbo Korea Central Daily News Korea Chosun Korea News The Korea Herald/USA Korean American Daily News Sae Gai Times (World Times) 1972 1975 1927 1967 1953 1986 1982 10,000 13,000 50,000 15,000 5,000 7,000 12,000 daily daily daily daily daily daily daily Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan Queens Manhattan   Total Daily Circulation:   112,000

 

Originally published in Dual City: Restructuring New York.
John Hull Mollenkopf and Manuel Castells (eds.)
Russel Sage Foundation, New York. 1991.