This scholarly look at journalism from past to present investigates what we call news, why we read the media and how our perceptions have been changed by texts, mobile media and news websites. MISTER PULITZER AND THE SPIDER is an amusing title referring to the spider's web of modern communication technology, and how the classic news story and culture is caught in the web.

Kevin G Barnhurst admits that he is an academic, not a journalist. Perhaps this was necessary in order for someone to have time to read through a hundred years of news, digitizing a project and detailing changes. He discovered that news was originally all about telling dramatic stories, such as firefighters killed when a building collapsed onto them; he says that news has now become either a short bite which is not much more than a headline or an in-depth story which is all about presenting the background.

Like all of civilization and crafts, news work started out as being a broad skill and when specialization began - the separate pages of news, international affairs, sport, fashion, good housekeeping, motoring, seen in early newspapers - then the new craft really took off and innovation was possible. Advertising as well as circulation paid for news distribution. Pulitzer, a newspaper mogul, decided to set standards and brisk competition arose. This extended to radio and television. While today paper manufacturing has slid into decline (I notice its harmful environmental effects were not mentioned), communicating news has prospered. So changes occur and can lead to benefits for everyone.

Barnhurst tells us that in the nineteenth century, up to fifty small story items might fit on a front page. Late in the twentieth century a handful of items fit, continued on inside pages. He found fewer quotes from ordinary people and more from experts, organizations and spokespersons. Barnhurst only looks at American news sources, with references to Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and Baltimore. He quotes from books and articles by journalists, such as Jon Franklin, recipient of more than one Pulitzer Prize. Today news stories can be edited and lines rearranged almost instantly, but that wasn't always the case and a journalist might type up two stories a day. If the editor chose, the later lines would be cut.

This work provides bar charts and graphs showing how stories appeared in longer or shorter texts over the years. This extends to radio news and inevitably political matters are cited. Some news sources were partisan but others were fiercely independent. TV news stations might have identical content on a breaking story, so viewers turned to papers for depth. With competition from so many on-demand sources, modern journalism sees the in-depth longer article as an elite form. Barnhurst also considers the economics of producing ever more copy in a world where talk is cheap.

Barnhurst discusses the cultural position of the journalist, and this role in helping the public learn about and understand major events. This extends to worldwide reporting, which has seen a great upsurge. A later chapter details the changes introduced by online news sites, when print distribution with its disadvantages has been in some areas largely replaced by the same product online. Ownership of domain names was an important step for traditional publishers. Photojournalism took on a renewed importance. Then broadcast journalism is studied. Sensationalism versus integrity is of course no newcomer to the news discussion.

While reading I noted that I didn't see a woman quoted until halfway through, and the women tend to be sociologists rather than working journalists. This is until we hear of Barbara Serrano, who was inspired by the Watergate hearings on TV to become a journalist. Her work for the Seattle Times was highly praised and she became political editor in 1999, continuing to progress through study at Harvard and editing with the Los Angeles Times. She later took a law degree and became a criminal prosecutor. A few other women's paths of progress are quoted but the vast majority of names in the text are male. While the author is trying to reflect the combined history of the craft, I feel that a chapter on the pioneering female journalists, who sometimes had to work under male pseudonyms, and the opening of this avenue of employment for women, who tended to focus on social conditions and change, would be a valuable inclusion. I believe Kevin G Barnhurst might be quite amused to think someone was analyzing his text just as he has analyzed screeds of news print and recorded news programs. MISTER PULITZER AND THE SPIDER will be a good read for anyone studying or interested in journalism, sociology, media studies, philosophy and social history.