Amateur journalism

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Amateur journalism is a hobby for starting small newspapers established after the U.S. Civil War, using small and inexpensive printing presses. Local circulation and exchanges, sometimes among associations were done. Conventions were also held. The hobby waxed and waned in the early 20th century, achieving a literary peak under the influence of H. P. Lovecraft and W. Paul Cook in the 1915-1925 period. The 1930s brought a redevelopment of interest with a mix of fine printing with quality material and crude leaflets from small hand-presses and mimeographs. Membership in associations has diminished to the hundreds in the United States and Canada and many are elderly as safety rules for motorized presses and hand-setting type have become lost arts. [1] Citizen journalism and blogging have come with the advent of the internet, however.

Hobby regular activity that is done for enjoyment

A hobby is a regular activity done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time, not professionally and not for pay. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing other amusements. Participation in hobbies encourages acquiring substantial skills and knowledge in that area. A list of hobbies changes with renewed interests and developing fashions, making it diverse and lengthy. Hobbies tend to follow trends in society, for example stamp collecting was popular during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as postal systems were the main means of communication, while video games are more popular nowadays following technological advances. The advancing production and technology of the nineteenth century provided workers with more availability in leisure time to engage in hobbies. Because of this, the efforts of people investing in hobbies has increased with time.

H. P. Lovecraft American author

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was an American writer of weird fiction and horror fiction. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he spent most of his life there, and his fiction was primarily set against a New England backdrop. Lovecraft was never able to support himself from earnings as an author and editor, and he subsisted in progressively strained circumstances in his last years. He died of cancer at the age of 46.

William Paul Cook was a writer, printer and publisher. He wrote under his own name and the pseudonym Willis T. Crossman and was a leading figure in the hobbyist tradition of amateur journalism. He lived and wrote mostly in Vermont and Massachusetts.

Retired Tampa Tribune reporter Leland Hawes is an aficionado. [1]

Leland Mosley Hawes Jr. was an American newspaper reporter for the Tampa Tribune. He had a long tenure at the paper and was involved in various projects after leaving the paper, including serving on the committee that selected the first six historical figures to be immortalized in bronze busts along the Tampa Riverwalk. The Hillsborough County Bar Association awarded him with its Liberty Bell Award in 1989.

Related Research Articles

Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on recent events. The word journalism applies to the occupation, as well as citizen journalists using methods of gathering information and using literary techniques. Journalistic media include print, television, radio, Internet, and, in the past, newsreels.

Printing press device for evenly printing ink onto a print medium

A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium, thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink, and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium.

Video clips are short clips of video, usually part of a longer recording. The term is also more loosely used to mean any short video less than the length of a traditional television program.

Philip W. Cook is an American journalist. He is the author of Abused Men – The Hidden Side of Domestic Violence.

Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that employs images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography by complying with a rigid ethical framework which demands that the work be both honest and impartial whilst telling the story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists create pictures that contribute to the news media, and help communities connect with one other. Photojournalists must be well informed and knowledgeable about events happening right outside their door. They deliver news in a creative format that is not only informative, but also entertaining.

Citizen journalism journalism genre

Citizen journalism is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information." Similarly, Courtney C. Radsch defines citizen journalism "as an alternative and activist form of news gathering and reporting that functions outside mainstream media institutions, often as a response to shortcomings in the professional journalistic field, that uses similar journalistic practices but is driven by different objectives and ideals and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy than traditional or mainstream journalism". Jay Rosen proposes a simpler definition: "When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another." Citizen journalism should not be confused with community journalism or civic journalism, both of which are practiced by professional journalists, collaborative journalism which is the practice of professional and non-professional journalists working together, and social journalism that denotes a digital publication with a hybrid of professional and non-professional journalism.

Small press Publisher with low annual sales revenue and/or few titles

A small press is a publisher with annual sales below a certain level or below a certain number of titles published. The terms "indie publisher" and "independent press" and others are sometimes used interchangeably.

Letterpress printing

Letterpress printing is a technique of relief printing using a printing press, a process by which many copies are produced by repeated direct impression of an inked, raised surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. A worker composes and locks movable type into the "bed" or "chase" of a press, inks it, and presses paper against it to transfer the ink from the type which creates an impression on the paper.

Private press publishing, with respect to books, is an endeavor performed by craft-based expert or aspiring artisans, either amateur or professional, who, among other things, print and build books, typically by hand, with emphasis on design, graphics, layout, fine printing, binding, covers, paper, stitching, and the like.

<i>The Beaumont Enterprise</i>

The Beaumont Enterprise is a newspaper of Hearst Communications, headquartered in Beaumont, Texas. It has been in operation since 1880.

An amateur press association (APA) is a group of people who produce individual pages or magazines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group.

Albion press iron hand press for printing

The Albion press is a model of early iron hand printing press, originally designed and manufactured in London by Richard Whittaker Cope around 1820. It worked by a simple toggle action, unlike the complex lever-mechanism of the Columbian press and the Stanhope press. Albions continued to be manufactured, in a range of sizes, until the 1930s. They were used for commercial book-printing until the middle of the nineteenth century, and thereafter chiefly for proofing, jobbing work and by private presses. Francis Meynell often used an Albion to proof pages of his designs for Nonesuch Press books, and printed some small books and ephemera using the press.

Adana Printing Machines

Adana Printing Machines were manufactured from 1922 to 1999 in Twickenham, England. Although most of the printing presses produced by Adana were aimed at hobby printers, they were frequently put to commercial use. Adanas are still to be found throughout the world in the hands of colleges, enthusiasts and professional printers. Caslon Limited manufactured machines after a takeover of the company in 1987.

<i>Amateur Telescope Making</i>

Amateur Telescope Making (ATM) is a series of three books edited by Albert G. Ingalls between 1926 and 1953 while he was an associate editor at Scientific American. The books cover various aspects of telescope construction and observational technique, sometimes at quite an advanced level, but always in a way that is accessible to the intelligent amateur. The caliber of the contributions is uniformly high and the books have remained in constant use by both amateurs and professionals.

The history of journalism in the United Kingdom includes the gathering and transmitting of news, spans the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialised techniques for gathering and disseminating information on a regular basis. In the analysis of historians, it involves the steady increase of the scope of news available to us and the speed with which it is transmitted.

W. A. Fry Canadian sport administrator and newspaper publisher

William Alexander Fry was a Canadian sports administrator and newspaper publisher.

References

  1. 1 2 A. C. Hutchison (January 9, 2005). "A hobby and a discovery; Two amateur journalists resurrect the colorful tales of Vermont writer W. Paul Cook". Times Argus. Archived from the original on January 22, 2005.