Imagined Audiences: How Journalists

Perceive and Pursue the Public 1st

Edition Jacob L. Nelson
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/imagined-audiences-how-journalists-perceive-and-pu
rsue-the-public-1st-edition-jacob-l-nelson/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Essential public affairs for journalists Sixth Edition

James Morrison

https://ebookmass.com/product/essential-public-affairs-for-
journalists-sixth-edition-james-morrison/

How Documentaries Work Jacob Bricca

https://ebookmass.com/product/how-documentaries-work-jacob-
bricca/

Imagined Futures: Hope, Risk and Uncertainty 1st

Edition Julia Cook (Auth.)

https://ebookmass.com/product/imagined-futures-hope-risk-and-
uncertainty-1st-edition-julia-cook-auth/

QuickBooks 2024 All-in-One For Dummies 1st Edition

Stephen L. Nelson

https://ebookmass.com/product/quickbooks-2024-all-in-one-for-
dummies-1st-edition-stephen-l-nelson/
Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry 8th edition David
L Nelson

https://ebookmass.com/product/lehninger-principles-of-
biochemistry-8th-edition-david-l-nelson/

ORGB 6: Organisational Behavior 6th Edition Debra L.

Nelson

https://ebookmass.com/product/orgb-6-organisational-behavior-6th-
edition-debra-l-nelson/

Jacob Schiff and the Art of Risk 1st ed. Edition Adam
Gower

https://ebookmass.com/product/jacob-schiff-and-the-art-of-
risk-1st-ed-edition-adam-gower/

Guardians of Public Value: How Public Organisations

Become and Remain Institutions 1st ed. Edition Arjen
Boin

https://ebookmass.com/product/guardians-of-public-value-how-
public-organisations-become-and-remain-institutions-1st-ed-
edition-arjen-boin/

How to Write about Economics and Public Policy 1st

Edition Katerina Petchko

https://ebookmass.com/product/how-to-write-about-economics-and-
public-policy-1st-edition-katerina-petchko/
Imagined Audiences
 J OU R NA L I SM A N D P O L I T IC A L
C OM M U N IC AT IO N U N B OU N D
Series editors: Daniel Kreiss, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and
Nikki Usher, The University of Illinois Urbana-​Champaign

Journalism and Political Communication Unbound seeks to be a high-​profile

book series that reaches far beyond the academy to an interested public
of policymakers, journalists, public intellectuals, and citizens eager to make
sense of contemporary politics and media. “Unbound” in the series title has
multiple meanings: It refers to the unbinding of borders between the fields
of communication, political communication, and journalism, as well as related
disciplines such as political science, sociology, and science and technology
studies; it highlights the ways traditional frameworks for scholarship have
disintegrated in the wake of changing digital technologies and new social,
political, economic, and cultural dynamics; and it reflects the unbinding
of media in a hybrid world of flows across mediums.

Other books in the series:

Reckoning: Journalism’s Limits and Possibilities

Candis Callison and Mary Lynn Young
Imagined Audiences
How Journalists Perceive and Pursue
the Public

JAC O B L . N E L S O N

1
 3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Nelson, Jacob L., author.
Title: Imagined audiences : how journalists perceive and pursue the public /​Jacob L. Nelson.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. |
Series: Journalism and pol commun unbound series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020045400 (print) | LCCN 2020045401 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197542590 (hardback) | ISBN 9780197542606 (paperback) |
ISBN 9780197542620 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: News audiences—​United States—​History—​21st century. |
Journalism—​United States—​History—​21st century. | Online journalism z
United States—​History—​21st century. | Journalism—​Technological
innovations.
Classification: LCC PN ​4784 . N ​48 N45 2021 (print) | LCC PN ​4784 . N ​48 (ebook) |
DDC 071/​.3—​dc23
LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2020045400
LC ebook record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2020045401

DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197542590.001.0001

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
For Talia Grey
 Preface

In summer 2010, I began work as an editor for a local news website. The site’s
owners aspired to solve a problem that had perplexed local news publishers
since the advent of the internet: In an online environment, where profit
comes from huge audiences, how do you make news with a geographically
confined readership financially sustainable? The company’s answer was to
develop strong bonds between local communities and the journalists hired
to cover them. The owners believed that doing so would make ads on their
sites more valuable than those found anywhere else online because they
would be reaching a more devoted and attentive group of people.
How were these community bonds pursued? The tactics varied wildly
from quarter to quarter. At first, editors were given budgets so we could
hire freelancers to cover as much local news as possible. The budgets soon
disappeared, and editors were given video cameras and told to make a lot
of short videos. We tried photo galleries. Then audio-​slideshows. We held
events. We sponsored local debates. We enlisted residents to write columns
for a small amount of money. When those budgets dried up as well, we
encouraged the same residents to blog for free. It sometimes felt like our
executives had assembled a list of journalism innovations cited in the trade
press or discussed at industry conferences, thrown them into a bag, and
plucked a new one out each month.
In 2013, the company tried another approach to profitability: It laid off
half its editorial staff.
Since then, journalism’s problems have only grown more complicated and
its fate has grown more uncertain. This book is about the people confronting
that uncertainty.
 Introduction

There is never a single answer to the question of “What do audiences

want?”
Anthony Nadler1

In a cluster of cubicles in the middle of the Chicago Tribune’s downtown

newsroom, Tom Palmer holds an iPad to his face and stares.
As one of the paper’s digital editors, he has been tasked with reviewing
an investigative report that’s about to run to see how it will look on mobile
platforms when it gets published.
“We try to replicate our users’ experience,” Palmer explains.
A few moments later, he gives the okay to his team. They send out a
breaking news alert that immediately reaches 60,000 people. The other dig-
ital editors begin posting the story to the paper’s homepage and social media
pages, changing the photos and headline that had been chosen for the print
version in an effort to make it more appealing to each medium-​specific
audience.
“We massage it for an online readership,” one of the editors says.
“How do you know what each audience wants?” I ask.
“It’s educated guessing,” he replies. Then, while gesturing to an open tab on
his computer browser that lists an elaborate set of online audience metrics,
he adds, “Combined with some tools to kind of check your work.”
Ten miles south of Tribune Tower, the four journalists behind City Bureau
arrange tables and chairs while waiting for people to arrive. They are pre-
paring for one of their Public Newsrooms, weekly events that invite commu-
nity members from Chicago’s South and West Sides to meet with and speak
to local journalists.
“When people think of journalists, they think of this nameless, face-
less other,” says Bettina Chang, City Bureau’s co-​founder and editorial di-
rector. “Trying to bring them together with journalists in a collaborative

Imagined Audiences. Jacob L. Nelson, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197542590.003.0001
2 Imagined Audiences

environment, or just an environment where everybody is learning together,

is so important.”
Public Newsrooms are intended to provide an opportunity for community
members who feel left out of traditional journalism to share their thoughts
and questions with reporters. They also enable reporters to learn from com-
munity members about how their work is received.
“We are trying to tell communities that we care about them, that they can
see us face to face, and that they can interact with us in lots of different ways,”
Chang explains. “For City Bureau, community engagement is a two-​way
street that’s always occupied.”
At the Tribune, the audience comprises numbers on a screen. At City
Bureau, it comprises people in a room. For the former, the pursuit of the au-
dience is a battle for attention. For the latter, it’s a quest for connection.
The journalists behind both organizations believe they understand the
people they hope to reach, and this understanding motivates the decisions
they make to reach them.
The truth is that no one ever knows for sure.

The changing role of the audience in journalism

Like all forms of media, journalism’s success depends in no small part

on its reception. An article that includes the most scandalous of scoops
accomplishes nothing if no one reads it. And a newspaper can’t hope to
pay its staff and generate a profit if its offerings don’t compel people to be-
come subscribers. All news publishers, be they television, magazine, print,
or online, thus depend on finding and maintaining an audience to survive.
Journalists know this to be true, and that knowledge affects how they ap-
proach their work. What they do not know, however, is whom precisely that
audience comprises, and what compels them to spend their time with the
news. As a result, the choices journalists make—​in the stories they tell and
the ways that they tell them—​are molded and constrained by the assumptions
they form about the people they hope to reach.
These assumptions have always mattered, but they have grown even
more important in recent years. As the news industry attempts to over-
come its ongoing crises of diminishing revenue and public trust, its focus
has increasingly shifted toward embracing a public it was once all too happy
to largely ignore. Many within journalism now believe that, in a digital
 Introduction 3

era where audiences enjoy a seemingly endless spectrum of media choice,

news publishers must become more deliberate in their efforts to earn au-
dience loyalty. Additionally, persistent attacks on journalism’s credibility
from distrustful citizens have forced those in the profession to acknowledge
that their relationship with the public is in bad shape. There is an emerging
consensus among journalism publishers, funders, and researchers that the
news industry needs to improve its relationship with the public to overcome
its greatest challenges. As a result, journalists across the globe have begun
investing more time and resources into understanding, measuring, and en-
gaging with their audiences than they ever had in the past.
This intervention goes by a number of names—​such as “engaged,”2 “par-
ticipatory,”3 “reciprocal,”4 and “public-​powered”5 journalism—​all of which
trace the profession’s problems to the notion that audiences are no longer
willing to tolerate a one-​sided relationship in which the power dynamic is
skewed and their input is rarely solicited or valued. The rationale underlying
the news industry’s embrace of the audience lies in part in the idea that doing
so will remove the marker of elitism that many now believe to be one of the
most distasteful aspects of the profession among the public. News publishers
have also begun transitioning from advertising-​supported to audience-​
supported revenue models, which means their efforts to understand and
engage with news audiences are seen as not only intuitively appealing but
also financially necessary.6 As the desire to more deliberately understand,
engage with, and profit from news audiences continues to gain momentum
throughout the news industry, so does the need to understand the beliefs
journalists hold about whom their audiences include and what they want
from news.
The connection between how journalists perceive and pursue their
audiences raises important questions: How do journalists conceptualize
their audiences? Who gets included in these conceptualizations, and who is
left out? Perhaps most important, how aligned are journalism’s “imagined”
audiences with the real ones?

Outline of the book

In the pages that follow, I explore these questions. Chapter 1 offers a com-
prehensive examination of journalism’s relationship with its audience as well
as the impact of that relationship on the practice of journalism. Chapter 2
4 Imagined Audiences

introduces readers to the concept of “audience engagement,” an increas-

ingly common term within journalism research and practice used to refer
to attempts to improve the relationship between news producers and con-
sumers. The chapter argues that the growing appeal of audience engagement
among journalists is at least partially a response to the pressing problems
the profession currently faces—​namely a lack of public trust and economic
stability.
The next three chapters draw on ethnographic data collected from three
news organizations: the Chicago Tribune, City Bureau, and Hearken. Both
the Tribune and City Bureau publish news, while Hearken offers tools and
services to newsrooms interested in improving their relationship with their
audiences. As Chapter 3 reveals, each has its own distinct take on what
people expect from news. Though the employees I spoke with at each of the
organizations share the belief that audiences are disenchanted with the news,
their conclusions about the source of that disenchantment differ dramati-
cally. Chapter 4 examines the origins of the imagined audiences to under-
stand how perceptions of the news audience can vary significantly among
journalism professionals living within the same city.
Chapter 5 explores how differences in the way journalists imagine their
audiences shape their self-​perceptions, which consequently shape their audi-
ence pursuits. Journalists at the Tribune are ambivalent about engaging with
audiences more than they have in the past. They see an upside but also ample
potential for aggravation. Because those at Hearken and City Bureau believe
audiences have much to offer journalism, they adamantly pursue—​and ad-
vocate for—​a more “engaged” approach to news production that emphasizes
collaboration and communication between journalists and the public. These
engagement-​focused approaches to news audiences seek to ensure that
journalists draw on a more diverse set of voices to more accurately reflect the
people they attempt to reach.
However, as Chapter 6 reveals, audience engagement is complicated and
can create as many questions as it seeks to answer. For example, although audi-
ence engagement was not mandated at the Chicago Tribune, some journalists
felt compelled to pursue it regardless. Yet those who did described feelings
of uncertainty, frustration, and even fear as a result of their interactions with
the audience, which often were much darker than expected. Furthermore,
as Chapter 7 explores, even when audience engagement leads to journalism
that reflects a wider array of viewpoints, that does not necessarily mean the
same as journalism that reaches an audience willing to pay to support it.
 Introduction 5

Taken together, the data reveal that journalists’ assumptions about their
audiences shape their approaches to their audiences. They also show that, de-
spite the rise of granular, sophisticated measures of audience behavior, there
remains an extraordinary amount of variation in audience assumptions
throughout the news industry. By examining the origins and implications of
that variation, this book illustrates the important role that audiences play in
journalism, how that role has—​and has not—​changed, and what the changes
and consistencies mean for the profession and the public.
I conclude that discussions surrounding what audiences want from
journalism always are inherently limited by journalists’ incomplete
conceptualizations of whom their audiences comprise in the first place. This
was certainly the case in a pre-​digital age, when journalists had few sources of
audience data to draw from. However, it continues to be the case even at a time
when sophisticated measures of audience data are common in newsrooms
across the world, to the contrary of those who argue we are entering an era
of the “rationalization of audience understanding.”7 Audience measurement
data show journalists how people behave but not why. Journalists then use
the data, which reflect what audiences do, to make educated guesses about
what they want. The guesses reflect how journalists imagine the audience
more than they do the actual audience.

“Nobody knows anything”

How journalists imagine their audiences profoundly affects what they do to

reach them. Journalists tend to perceive their audiences from a perspective
that is understandably—​albeit inaccurately—​self-​involved. They assume
that audiences make decisions about news consumption based primarily on
the quantity and quality of available news. In other words, journalists tend to
see their relationship with audiences as a relatively straightforward equation
with just two variables: what audiences want from the news and the degree to
which the news is meeting those desires.
However, audience behavior stems in large part from structural-​and
individual-​level factors that have little to do with news preferences or even
the news itself. By drawing on the rich body of audience studies literature,
I offer a counter-​narrative to the notion that journalists play the primary
role in determining how news gets received by the public. Instead, I argue
that the degree to which journalists’ assumptions about their audiences are
6 Imagined Audiences

aligned with what audiences actually want from news is just one part of the
equation that determines how audiences ultimately choose to behave. Other
variables, such as the language that people speak, the mechanisms by which
they find and consume media, and the amount of time that they devote to
media consumption on a given day, are likely just as important when it comes
to shaping audience behavior. In short, journalists may have much less con-
trol over the reception of their work than they would like to believe.
I close the book by encouraging news scholars and publishers to ac-
knowledge these limitations and, in doing so, embrace what I call journal-
istic humility—​the acceptance that journalists can never fully understand
or control their audiences. Consequently, the audience-​focused journalism
currently being pursued is more likely to succeed as a means to improve
journalism than as a means to increase readership. News that is more fre-
quently and deliberately made by and for the people it hopes to reach would
undoubtedly be an improvement over the way that journalism has tradition-
ally been produced. When journalists more explicitly reach out to and solicit
feedback from the public, they become better equipped to confront the blind
spots that have long been detrimental to the quality of their reporting. This
is particularly apparent when it comes to efforts to include members of mar-
ginalized communities, who have historically been underrepresented when
journalists report the news.8
However, better news will not necessarily lead to more popular news.
Journalists’ conceptualizations of and approaches to their audiences are im-
portant elements of what journalism ultimately looks like as well as what
it ultimately accomplishes. But they are just one piece of the process that
determines the extent to which journalists actually build an audience and
reach economic stability.
This distinction is an important one that unfortunately often gets
overlooked in discussions about how best to improve journalism’s dismal ec-
onomic situation. As this book’s chapters reveal, the unfolding efforts among
journalists to more explicitly engage with their audiences are frequently
framed as a means by which journalists will improve not only the quality of
the news but also the economic prospects of their newsrooms. This framing
overlooks the powerful roles that outside forces play in shaping where people
turn for news, the amount of time they spend with news, and even their
awareness of available news outlets. By assuming that journalistic quality and
reception go hand in hand, news organizations inadvertently perpetuate a
 Introduction 7

misunderstanding about the connection between their reporting and their

audiences that is likely detrimental to their very survival.
In short, when journalists assume that repairing their relationship with the
public will not only improve the quality of their work but also increase their
newsroom’s popularity and, consequently, its revenue, they set themselves
up for disappointment. The sooner that journalism stakeholders realize this,
the sooner they will realize that returning the profession to some degree of
economic sustainability is not simply a matter of growing more attuned to
their audiences’ desires. It is a matter of drastically transforming journalism’s
relationship with and approach to funders, advertisers, big tech companies,
and, in all likelihood, the government. As journalism scholar Victor Pickard
wrote: “The economic threats facing journalism . . . comprise a structural
crisis for our news media system. But this crisis is also an opportunity to en-
tirely reinvent journalism.”9
To be clear, my motivation for making this distinction is not to discourage
journalists from striving to improve their relationships with their readers.
Journalism practitioners, funders, and researchers pursuing the admirable
goal of improving the craft and its impact on society should continue to
do so. However, they should also accept that the results of their efforts are
largely out of their hands. To quote the late screenwriter William Goldman,
“Nobody knows anything” when it comes to predicting audience behavior.10
Although Goldman was discussing the movie business, the assertion applies
to all media—​including journalism. So, when journalists make claims about
what audiences want, what they are really doing more than anything else is re-
vealing their own assumptions about the people they believe those audiences
comprise. As the pages that follow show, these assumptions matter: They
shape how the news gets produced and whom it gets produced for.
Acknowledging the important role these assumptions play in moti-
vating how journalists ultimately pursue their audiences allows journalism
researchers and practitioners alike to come to terms with the inherent con-
tradiction within the profession’s call for more audience participation in
news production: It is a demand to give the public more of a voice deliv-
ered by journalists who claim to speak for the public. To be sure, journalism
stakeholders have no choice but to draw on a combination of available data
and their own intuition to determine how to serve the people they hope to
reach. As a result, those who advocate for this audience-​focused, democratic
form of journalism must reckon with the fact that the conviction underlying
8 Imagined Audiences

its pursuit stems from the very thing that they dislike most about journalism
in its current form—​the implicit assumption that those who publish the news
know what’s best for those who consume it.

Defining the “audience”

Indeed, even as many throughout the industry grow increasingly focused

on audiences, the very meaning of the word “audience” remains far from
clear-​cut. Some see the term as a strictly passive one, using it only to refer to
people who consume media as compared to those who actively engage with
it. For example, those who watch a news broadcast are part of the news “au-
dience,” while people who comment on or share an online article are news
“participants” or “users.” Others who discuss journalism and its relationship
with the public shirk the question of audience entirely, focusing instead on
its impact on society as a whole.11 In this book, I use the term in the most ge-
neral sense, to describe the people whom media producers reach—​or intend
to reach—​with their content.
Within this book, I also distinguish among audiences, communities, and
the public. Journalists have an audience in mind when they report the news,
and the audiences may or may not include the communities that their news
is about. For instance, although I am part of the New York Times’s audience,
the Phoenix community I live in rarely makes it into that paper’s pages.
All of these people—​the journalists, their imagined audiences, and those
living within the communities included or excluded from those perceived
masses—​are members of the public. This distinction is increasingly impor-
tant, especially for the growing number of news publishers who want to elim-
inate the gap between the people they write about and those they write for.

What this book is, and what it isn’t

A final word about what this book is and what it is not. This is an academic
book. It builds off of and contributes to scholarly conversations about jour-
nalism, its relationship with the public, and its role in society. However, the
book also is intended to be helpful and relevant to the people it focuses on
and to the news industry at large. I entered academia because, while working
as a journalist, I stumbled onto questions about the profession I knew I could
 Introduction 9

only hope to answer from outside of it. So, while this book clearly draws on
theory to make sense of its findings, it also focuses on the implications of
these findings for news industry stakeholders, news audiences, and the con-
nection between the two.
Any book about contemporary journalism is inevitably a book about jour-
nalism in crisis. However, this book is not about the crisis itself. Much has
already been written about the profound challenges facing the profession.12
Nor is this book about whether the attempts to overcome the challenges will
succeed. First, success is a relative term—​a thriving news media environ-
ment means one thing for Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York
Times, and something else entirely for Stephen Bannon, the former executive
chairman of Breitbart News. Second, as others have concluded in their anal-
yses of recent journalistic interventions,13 it is simply too early to tell whether
any of them will work. Instead, this book uses the news industry’s varied
attempts to adapt to a challenging set of circumstances as an opportunity to
explore something more enduring: the relationship between those who make
the news and those who consume it.
 1
The Journalist–​Audience Relationship

On a cold December morning in 2016, Kurt Gessler offered a surprising ar-

gument for how to fix the news industry: Journalists should act more like car
salesmen.
The Chicago Tribune’s deputy digital editor made his case in a crowded
Peet’s Coffee on Michigan Avenue, across the street from the newspaper’s
headquarters. American journalism was about eight years into a devastating
and seemingly endless financial crisis. Newspapers lost 45 percent of their
employees between 2008 and 2017.1 The newspaper industry’s financial
strain was obvious within the Tribune’s newsroom, a sprawling space littered
with empty cubicles, leaking ceilings, and a roach problem.2 Indeed, less than
two years after my interview with Gessler, the Tribune sold the building it had
called home for nearly a century and left it for leased office space about a half
mile south.3
As if the economic challenges weren’t enough, journalists recently had dis-
covered another reason to worry. The election of Donald Trump, who rou-
tinely disparaged established news organizations as “fake news,” shocked
reporters and editors nationwide. Many assumed that the news media’s rig-
orous coverage of Trump’s sordid professional and personal past—​combined
with the candidate’s often offensive comments throughout the campaign—​
meant he surely would lose the U.S. presidential election to Hillary Clinton.
His victory forced journalists to reckon with the unwelcome idea that not
only were people unwilling to pay for news, they might not even believe it in
the first place.
This period of institutional self-​reflection had just begun when I met
with Gessler, who had been working in Chicago journalism for more than
25 years. He spoke quickly and excitedly, in a way that suggested that, de-
spite its challenges, he still found his profession fascinating. He made his
unexpected comparison between the news and auto industries after I asked
how the Tribune balanced publishing stories people needed—​such as inves-
tigative, watchdog reporting—​with the stories that people wanted—​such as

Imagined Audiences. Jacob L. Nelson, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/​oso/​9780197542590.003.0002
12 Imagined Audiences

celebrity and sports coverage. In essence, how did the paper balance its pur-
suit of “important” journalism with the kind required to keep the lights on?
“I don’t necessarily think that those interests are competing,” Gessler said.
He used an example to explain. Earlier that morning, his team had posted
an investigative story in a prime spot on the paper’s homepage. At first, not
many people clicked on it. Before replacing it with something else, however,
he decided to change the headline, which originally read “Illinois Universities
Grapple with ‘Sanctuary Campus’ Efforts.”
“That headline is garbage,” Gessler said.
He made the headline more specific so that readers would have a clearer
idea of what the story was about, and also so that the link would appear more
prominently in search engine results. Soon after, the piece went from the
site’s 40th most read to its fifth. To Gessler, this illustrated an important mis-
perception in journalism: the idea that investigative journalism is less pop-
ular than other forms of news simply because people don’t like it as much. It’s
not about preferences, he said. It’s about presentation.
“You don’t just come to the car dealer one day and say, ‘Oh, look. There’s a
new Ford’,” Gessler said. Car dealerships don’t take public demand for their
new models as a given. Instead, they attempt to create it through a relent-
less barrage of promotion. Gessler believes journalists should follow suit, by
devoting more of their thought and energy to marketing their work: “We’re
not selling a car, but at the same time we do a terrible job of selling anything.”
This is how the Tribune’s digital team goes about finding an audience. The
people behind City Bureau take a different approach. Founded in 2015, City
Bureau is a lean, nonprofit news organization focused specifically on the
Chicago’s South and West Side communities. City Bureau’s four founders
agree with Gessler that audiences are not innately uninterested in political
and civic issues. The similarities end there. When it comes to hard news,
Gessler thinks that the Tribune puts out a good product, but falls short in
marketing it. The people behind City Bureau disagree.
“Anybody can pick up the Trib. That’s not the problem,” said Harry
Backlund, a City Bureau cofounder and its director of operations. “The
problem is what’s in it.”
The people who run City Bureau believe traditional journalism frequently
falls short by falling back on simplified, skewed narratives, especially when
it comes to communities that primarily comprise people of color. From
their perspective, the South and West Sides of the city—​where a majority
 Journalist–Audience Relationship 13

of Chicago’s Black and Latino residents live—​ are vibrant, multifaceted

neighborhoods, yet they are often portrayed as little more than the settings
for violent crimes by predominantly White journalists who show up when
shootings unfold and then leave.
“There are people that have never trusted the Tribune,” said City Bureau
cofounder and community engagement director Andrea Hart. “If you’re not
consistent and you’re not showing up . . . and then you’ve come in and you’ve
said something really problematic about my neighborhood, or you only talk
about the problems, there’s an inherent distrust.”
City Bureau’s founders believe that traditional journalism published
by daily newspapers like the Tribune does an inadequate job accurately
representing what goes on in areas where the bulk of the city’s non-​White
residents live, and those residents know it. So, City Bureau has set out to
produce journalism about these communities in a way that is deliberately
more collaborative. To do so, the organization hosts weekly events that bring
together journalists and South and West Side residents, trains community
members to document public meetings on their own, and mentors a mix of
professional and amateur reporters—​most of whom are themselves people
of color—​to be more conscious of the ways they think about, report on, and
eventually write local news stories. In short, City Bureau’s team hopes to win
its audience over by more explicitly bringing it into the news production pro-
cess, thus resulting in what they believe will be more honest—​and, conse-
quently, better received—​journalism.
“We talk a lot about community engagement,” Hart said, “because
audiences and the public seem to want that.”
These examples reflect one of the most important—​yet least studied—​
aspects of journalism: the connection between how journalists perceive and
pursue their audiences. Because the Tribune’s digital editors believe that their
newspaper’s audience comprises people who are interested in—​but some-
times unaware of—​its most important reporting, they devote their time and
resources to finding novel ways of getting Tribune stories in front of people
they hope to reach. City Bureau’s founders, conversely, believe their audience
comprises people who justifiably distrust traditional journalism produced
by outlets like the Tribune. Their perception of the audience leads them to
focus their energies on finding novel, collaborative ways to report the news.
For the former, journalism’s problem is one of distribution. For the latter, it’s
representation.
14 Imagined Audiences

Journalism’s imagined audience

How is it that journalists working within the same city, and attempting to
reach many of the same people, are able to come to such different conclusions
about who those people are, and what they want from news? The answer
to this begins with an important, yet infrequently discussed acknowledg-
ment: Journalists, like all media producers, can never possibly know pre-
cisely who sees what they publish. Instead, they create what communication
scholar Eden Litt calls an imagined audience that includes the people with
whom they believe they are communicating.4 As the New York Times’s
global analytics director James G. Robinson observed, “A central irony of the
newsroom is that while many journalists’ decisions are made with readers
in mind, the audiences for their work often remain unfocused, imagined
abstractions.”5
This conceptualization of audience perception stems from political scien-
tist Benedict Anderson’s notion of imagined communities, which he describes
as the way that citizens make real an otherwise abstract membership to the
nations in which they reside. He wrote: “It is imagined because the members
of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-​members,
meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives an image
of their communion.”6 News publishers similarly will never know or hear
from all their readers and must instead come up with an idea of who those
readers are.7
When journalists imagine the audience, there are typically two audiences
that they have in mind: the audience of a specific news outlet and the news
audience as a whole. How a news organization imagines its specific audience
significantly affects the way in which it shapes its coverage. A Phoenix-​based
newspaper is unlikely to publish a story about a block party in Miami, just
as a food and dining magazine is unlikely to publish a story about college
football. In either case, the publisher assumes the outlet’s audience comprises
people united by a specific trait (for example, geography, interest), which
limits the topics that they will be interested in reading about. As journalism
scholar C. W. Anderson wrote: “All media projects have a tacit vision of who
their readers are and of what their audiences look like, and this shapes their
organizational behavior.”8
Journalism’s general imagined audience is, as the name suggests, much
broader. This refers to how journalism stakeholders consider the public
at large, independent of any particular news outlet. For example, it is
 Journalist–Audience Relationship 15

conventional wisdom throughout the news industry that older people con-
sume more television news, while younger people consume more news
online. As media scholar Anthony Nadler noted, many throughout the pro-
fession also imagine the news audience “as distracted and hurried by busy
routines,” and looking for news that is “easily scannable, graphically depicted
when possible, and presented in bite-​size bundles.”9 More recently, many
within journalism have embraced the notion that news audiences prefer po-
litical news that aligns solely with their own ideologies rather than those that
put forth contradictory positions.10
Whether general or specific, imagined audiences all share one unifying
characteristic: They are manmade. All audiences are artificial attempts by
media stakeholders to understand macro-​level reactions to their offerings.
While audiences comprise real people, they are inevitably what communi-
cation scholar James Webster has called “a theoretical abstraction of one sort
or another.”11 Yet, as Nadler points out, despite the fact that audiences are
mental constructions, they have “material consequences.”12 Once journalists
imagine their audiences, their goals become not just producing the news but
producing news in such a way that it will resonate with those they hope to
reach.13 In other words, once audiences come into existence, “they can take
on a life of their own.”14

First imagined, then ignored

Journalists typically have conceptualized the news audience as a nameless,

faceless mass, bound only by their shared decision to read, watch, or listen
to the news. Journalists throughout the 20th century knew their audiences
existed, and had a vague idea of who they comprised, but simply chose not
to think too much about them. Although people working within the mar-
keting side of news organizations routinely conducted audience research
throughout the years, journalists on the editorial side tended to unintention-
ally or willfully ignore it. By imagining audiences as “an undifferentiated and
amorphous blob,”15 journalists were free to fall back on what they considered
their own professional expertise when deciding what to write and how to
write it.
In keeping with their efforts to ignore audiences, journalists also ac-
tively resisted audience feedback, which they feared would conflict with
their own journalistic standards.16 Instead, they reported on topics that
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
"Oh, dear," said the boy, "I guess I'll have to go out and be eaten. It's
bad enough but I think I'd rather be eaten than be a spider."
"Yes," said the Princess, "and I think I should, too, only I would like to
disappoint that Gallopus. I know he'd much rather eat you than have
you turn into a spider."
"Oh, do you think so?" said Ting.
"I'm sure of it," responded the Princess.
"Then," said the boy, "maybe I can make a bargain with him."
So he leaned out of the window and called to the monster: "you
might as well go away now. I've decided to become a spider."
"What!" shouted the twenty-headed Gallopus, "why, you must be
crazy. Why—why, it's an awful feeling to be a spider. It's much nicer
to be eaten. Come on out and I'll swallow you whole and it won't hurt
a bit."
"No," said Ting, "I think I prefer to be a spider."
"Oh, go on," said the Gallopus, looking awfully disappointed, "you
can't mean it."
"Yes, I do," said the Prince, "although I might change my mind if you
let the Princess go free."
"Never," cried the monster, gnashing his teeth.
"Very well, then," said Ting, "you'll not eat me." And he started to
draw in his head.
"Wait, wait," shouted the Gallopus, "wait a moment. Let me think."
Then after a moment he groaned. "All right, I'll do it, though I ought
to be ashamed of myself. But it has been so many years since I
tasted a boy I simply cannot resist the temptation. So come out and
be eaten and the moment I gulp you down I'll go off to my cave and
shut my eyes, and the Princess can come out of the castle."
And the instant the monster said that the Prince jumped out of the
window, because he knew if he hesitated the Princess, who had
been listening in horrified silence, would never let him be eaten to
set her free.
"Ah, ha!" cried the Gallopus, smacking his twenty pairs of lips, when
he saw Ting standing before him, "now I have got you." Then he
burst into a roar of laughter. "I knew that story about the spider would
fetch you. That's the reason I made it up."
"You made it up?" cried Ting. "Do you mean to say it wasn't true?"
With another laugh the Gallopus shook every one of his heads
merrily. "Of course it wasn't true, and only a ninny like you would
have believed it."
"Is that so!" cried the Princess.
And as she spoke she jumped out of the window and marched right
up to the monster. "You wicked, wicked creature," she said, her
cheeks flaming and her eyes sparkling like diamonds.
And as she stood there right in front of the Gallopus she looked so
lovely Ting felt he would be willing to be eaten a dozen times for her
sake. And as for the twenty-headed Gallopus, he blushed scarlet
with confusion. Of course he had often seen the Princess at her
window, but never before in the sunshine outside the castle where
she was a hundred times as beautiful. So he just stared and stared
with all his mouths open, and shuffled his hundred and twenty feet
uneasily. And then all of a sudden his heads began to get dizzy, and
he felt as though he would sink through the ground with bashfulness.
And then—as the Princess, growing more dazzling every minute,
advanced still closer—bing—he lost his twenty heads entirely. Bing,
bing, bing—each one went off like a balloon when it bursts, and
nothing remained of the dreadful Gallopus to worry about.
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" cried the Princess, clapping her hands. "The
enchantment is broken. I am free again and you will not be eaten
after all, Ting. I wonder what ever made him lose his heads that
way?"
"Why," said Ting, taking her hand and liking her more than ever,
"don't you know? Because if you don't, just come to the palace and
look in a mirror and you will soon find out."
And when he said that the Princess tucked her arm in his and
marched him off to the palace as quick as she could.
"Well, well, well," cried the King, jumping off his throne in excitement
when he saw them coming in, "if this isn't the great surprise of my
life."
Then he patted Ting on the back and called him the bravest boy in
the land. "To think of conquering the twenty-headed Gallopus and
rescuing the Inherited Princess on your eighth birthday," he said. "I
never, never thought you would do it."
"I didn't do it," said Ting. "The Princess did it all herself."
And after the King had learned all that had happened he patted the
Princess on the back also, and then he pinched her cheek.
"I don't wonder, my dear," he said, "that the Gallopus lost his heads.
And I guess I'll announce that you and Ting did it between you, for
it's all in the family, anyway."
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SOCIABLE
SAND WITCH ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions

will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S.

copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright
in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and without
paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General
Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and
distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if
you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the
trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the
Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such
as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and
printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in
the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright
law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially
commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
 PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the

free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this
work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase
“Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of
the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or
online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and

Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand,
agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual
property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to
abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using
and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for
obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™
electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms
of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only

be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by
people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.
There are a few things that you can do with most Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the
full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There
are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™
electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and
help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the
collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the
individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the
United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright
law in the United States and you are located in the United
States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying,
distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works
based on the work as long as all references to Project
Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will
support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free
access to electronic works by freely sharing Project
Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this
agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name
associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms
of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with
its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it
without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside
the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to
the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying,
displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works
based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The
Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright
status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project

Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other

immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must
appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project
Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed,
viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United

States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it
away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg
License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United
States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to
anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges.
If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of
paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use
of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth
in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and
distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder.
Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™
License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright
holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files
containing a part of this work or any other work associated with
Project Gutenberg™.
 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute
this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the
Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if
you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project
Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or
other format used in the official version posted on the official
Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at
no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a
means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project
Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™
works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or

providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
 about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that
s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and
discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project
Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different
terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain
permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on,
transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright
law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite
these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the
medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,”
such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt
data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other
medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES -

Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in
paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic
work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for
damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU
AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE,
STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH
OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH
1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER
THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR
ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF
THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If

you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you
paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you
received the work from. If you received the work on a physical
medium, you must return the medium with your written
explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu
of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or
entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.
If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund
in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set

forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’,
WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR
ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this
agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this
agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the
maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable
state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of
this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the

Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless
from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project
Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or
deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect
you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of

Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new
computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of
volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project
Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™
collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In
2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was
created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project
Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your
efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-
profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the
laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by
the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal
tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and
your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500

West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact
links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation’s website and official page at
www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to

the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission
of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works
that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form
accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated
equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly
important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws

regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of
the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform
and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many
fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not
solicit donations in locations where we have not received written
confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or
determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states

where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know
of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from
donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot

make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations
received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp
our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current

donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a
number of other ways including checks, online payments and
credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project

Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could
be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose
network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several

printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by
copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus,
we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any
particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear
about new eBooks.