Jazz journalism was the period of journalism that followed yellow journalism, and lasted from approximately 1919–1924. Jazz journalism tended to cover subjects such as Hollywood, sex, violence, and money, with an emphasis on photography rather than writing and half the size of regular papers. Jazz Journalism is the sensationalist style of news that followed the somber news stories of World War I. Jazz Journalism typically consisted of bold titles and stirring photographs the stories ranged from details of the lives of celebrities and Hollywood actors to sex scandals and murder trials. There were two thousand daily newspapers published in the 1920s and twenty-seven million readers across the country.
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In 1987, "jazz journalism" was the term taken by a coterie of writers, photographers and broadcasters concerned professionally with jazz who met in Chicago and subsequently founded the Jazz Journalists Association (incorporated in 2005). The JJA is active in fomenting higher profile in the media of jazz and the people who criticize, photograph and/or broadcast it on radio, television and online platforms. The JJA produces annual Jazz Awards and maintains several online sites, including www.JJANews.org.
History
The beginning of jazz journalism was Joseph Medill Patterson's The New York Daily News in 1919. It was followed by William Randolph Hearst's New York Daily Mirror.In 1920, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer extended yellow journalism into tabloid journalism with an emphasis on sex, violence, murder, and celebrity affairs. As the popularity of the papers grew, many local newspapers were condensed into network papers with international and national articles and a segment complained about the loss of local news coverage. Papers such as the New York Daily News used bold headlines, large photos, and short, punchy text. In the 1920s three new papers emerged from New York - the New York Daily News, the Daily Mirror, and the Daily Graphic - with a customer base of 1.5 million readers. It was a New York Daily News reporter, Tom Howard, who secretly took a photo of Ruth Snyder with a camera strapped to his ankle in the execution chamber, as she was being electrocuted at Sing Sing prison in 1928 after being convicted of murder. A group the most notable Jazz Journalism writers of the time were Walter Winchell, Ed Sullivan, Louella Parsons, and Hedda Hopper. Several of the writers were tied previously to the entertainment industry. For example, Louella Parsons was a movie script writer and Hedda Hopper had been an actress before being a writer. Ed Sullivan and Walter Winchell made their transition from writing for theater to reporting on celebrities and scandal, and each had their own strengths. Louella Parsons, who wrote for several papers including the Los Angles Examiner and the New York American, was known for discovering the hidden secrets of stars.
Style
The original tabloids put a heavy emphasis on blood and gore. When supermarket sales became a major outlet, this was replaced by emotional stories, celebrity gossip, psychic tales, religious anecdotes, and various bizarre accounts. Some newspaper journalists wrote sensationalized confessional accounts detailing events which they had been present for allegedly. The Evening graphic had been called "the cosmograph", a term coined for the overlapping of the in order to make a new image. One example is when an actor, Rudolph Valentino, died in 1926, a photo was made with in heaven standing next to an opera singer, Enrico Caruso, who had died in 1921. Advertisements, which were important for these newspapers, were often for soaps, various creams, ointments, and tonics. Advertising revenue for newspapers from 1915-1929 tripled from $275 million to $800 million because of the commercial impact papers had on readers.