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Newspaper chains, companies that own several papers throughout the country, have played a part in the consolidation that’s reshaping print journalism. With the rise of chains, the power to control information conveyed through the printed word has become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Edward Wyllis Scripps founded the first newspaper chain in the 1890s. By the 1920s, there were about thirty chains in the United States, each owning an average of five papers. By 2004, the top ten chains controlled more than one-half of the nation’s total daily newspaper circulation. Around 2005, the consolidation trend in newspaper ownership had leveled off. Despite the fact that most newspapers still generated up to 20 percent profit margins even in 2006 and 2007, the decline in newspaper circulation and ad sales sparked panic among investors, and newspapers saw their stock prices plummet as the market showed little faith that newspapers had a future. Many newspaper chains responded by further slashing newsroom jobs.

About the same time, some large chains started to break up their holdings, selling unprofitable individual newspapers to private individuals and equity firms. Ownership of one of the three national U.S. newspapers—the Wall Street Journal—also changed hands, as the paper was bought up by media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. in 2007 (see “Media Literacy Case Study: Covering Business News”). The move raised serious concerns among critics, who warned that papers weren’t likely to conduct high-quality journalism if they were owned by large entertainment conglomerates. By 2009, Congress held the first hearings on the future of newspapers and considered the possibility of nonprofit models—like that used to support public radio and television. One such model already exists: The St. Petersburg Times, Florida’s largest newspaper, is owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, which specializes in training journalists.