Why was a US Socialist newspaper the world-record holder for circulation in 1902?

By 1902 (The Appeal to Reason) circulation... According to John Graham, the author of Yours for the Revolution (1990): "During political campaigns and crisis, copies of single issues reached 4.1 million - a world record..."





http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USA鈥?/a>|||Before advertising took over funding the media, newspapers used to be more tailored to people's political leanings, and the working-class papers were more critical of the corporate establishments and openly supportive of labor. Socialist working-class newspapers flourished in Britain until they began selling ads. Advertisers, of course, wanted to target a specific audience of readers, primarily affluent ones with money to spend on their products. Eventually working-class papers, even though they had some of the biggest circulations, were forced to fold from lack of ad revenue because their readers were not wealthy enough.





Such is the process of the mainstreaming and de-politicizing of the media into the mindless garbage we have today.





See Robert Picard, "Commercialism and Newspaper Quality," http://www.poynter.org/resource/63500/pi鈥?/a>|||because it had a lot of European news in it and Americans were infatuated with Europe around that time|||Because "John Graham, the author of Yours for the Revolution (1990)" said it.