82 | Mass Media and Historical Change
getting journalistic training on a professional footing progressed slowly. The
Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme in Paris was a first important step in 1899.
In other countries, like Germany, attempts to establish schools of journalism
at universities or business colleges came to grief, because of the resistance of
colleges as well as the self-image of the journalist, who considered education
and writing talent as sufficient qualification. Even in the United States, ini-
tially not a single university was willing to accept a donation from the pub-
lisher Joseph Pulitzer to finance a department of journalism. Not until 1912
did New York’s Columbia University finally accept Pulitzer’s offer, after the
University of Missouri had established one of the world’s first degree courses
in journalism.
Recent studies have revealed the social and cultural significance of the
press boom – for example its connection with urbanisation. The more locally
focused popular press helped numerous new citizens of large cities to orientate
themselves, made the metropolis accessible to them and developed its image.
Its attractions, its job market and its crime were interactively presented. As
Peter Fritsche has demonstrated in regard to the Berlin press of 1900, the
media defined how people viewed the city and acted in it, perhaps by encour-
aging the reader to keep his eyes open for anything newsworthy (Fritzsche
1996: 16). Conversely, newsworthy attractions often arose because the media
drew attention to them. It was not unusual for city newspapers to initiate these
attractions themselves. The Ullstein Verlag in Berlin, for example, organised
an automobile race and a ‘B.Z.-Air Race’, and then provided running reports
on them. By the same token it encouraged its readers to send in their own
photos of the city, and this as early as 1900. In Austria the Viennese press
organised treasure hunts, and the French magazine L’Auto initiated the annual
bicycle race, the Tour de France, in 1903 and immediately trebled its circula-
tion (Charle 2004: 197f.).
At the same time the newspapers influenced the daily rhythm of a city. Two
or three daily editions (morning, noon and evening) set the pace for news in
cities like Berlin and Cologne. In Great Britain there was one daytime edition,
but the rise of evening papers compensated this. New means of travel, like
bus, train and tramway, made newspaper reading an omnipresent practice by
which people could incidentally demonstrate their political leanings. Like-
wise, headlines became an acoustical component of the city. German travellers
in New York, London and Paris were constantly aware of the news criers.
In Berlin, where street sales had long been forbidden the better to control
subscription sales, the first newspaper vendors appeared in 1904. The BZ am
Mittag in particular embodied the ‘pace of Berlin’. This popular organ pub-
lished stock indices during the midday break, as soon as the market had closed,
as well as international news of that morning. This hectic pace of the press led
to its being considered both expression and cause of rampant nervousness, and