History
XIX century
A new phenomenon of public life was called the pricing policy of American periodicals in the middle of the XIX century: newspapers began to cost only 1-2 cents (like the newspapers of the Central Committee of the CPSU worth 2 kopecks in the second half of the XX century). These accessible publications have become not only a source of information, but also the main tool for manipulating public consciousness, turning the industry into a fourth power.

Before the launch of the daily color newspaper USA Today, there was no so-called federal (nationwide) press in the country. From The Presidential Election of 1860 in the Mirror of the Press:

In the 1850s, dailies reached a total circulation of 2.5 million copies, and weeklies had about 10 million copies. in the North, the leading capital of the press was New York, the newspapers of other northern states, which did not have such financial resources and qualified journalistic personnel, were limited to reprinting messages from leading newspapers and local news. The New York press dominated nationwide in the 1850s and 1860s. In December 1860, the Herald had an average daily circulation of 77,107 copies, and a Sunday circulation of 82,656 copies. this was the largest circulation in the world, since even the famous London Times had 25,000 copies. less. The Tribune boasted on April 10, 1861, that its daily edition was 55,000 copies, and its weekly edition was 287,750 copies. the New York Sun had a daily circulation of about 60,000 copies, the New York Times 35,000 copies, and the New York Evening Post had a daily circulation of about 60,000 copies.
However, the influence of New York newspapers was postulated not so much by their circulation as by the distribution area and the number of readers - the New York Tribune, having a circulation of more than 300 thousand copies, assured that the number of its readers was approaching a million:

Assessing the impact of New York's "big press," the Herald argued, "Some of the newspapers, with incomes equal to those of some of the states, are inaccessible to the influence of politicians, they represent intellectual progress. The telegraph and locomotive carry their influence to the farthest corners of the continent... They are the leading force to elevate one party or another, and are able to discuss the most important issues that time puts forward." Among the most influential newspapers in the North should also be the Springfield Republican and the Chicago Tribune.
In the same period, weekly media became widespread, among which it makes sense to note Harper's Weekly, which began to be published in 1857, and a number of literary and political magazines.

The history of the industry knows many outstanding figures of American periodicals. From an American Journaling review:

In the 50s-80s of the XIX century, the names of James Bennett ("Gerald"), Horace Greeley ("Tribune"), Samuel Bowles ("Springfield Republic"), William Bryan ("New York Post") "thundered" around the country. Then it was the turn of Charles Dana (New York Sun), Edwin Godkin (The Nation and the New York Evening Post), Henry Waterson (Louisville Courier Journal), who prepared the ground for the press to move to the basis of "new" journalism.
The foundation of the "yellow" press was the newspapers The New York Sun, The New York Herald and The New York Tribune. Sex, scandals, crime - these are the subjects of these publications. The pioneers of the genre were Joseph Pulitzer ("The New York World") and William Hearst ("The San Francisco Examiner", "New York Journal", etc.). Publications scored a rating not so much thanks to operational information, but a set of "human-interest stories" - newspaper materials that "... focus more on the awakening of emotions (compassion, pathos, humor, anxiety, curiosity) than on the coverage of reliable events".

In 1883, Pulitzer acquired the bankrupt newspaper World, which he made a typical example of a newspaper of new journalism. Pulitzer's World immediately attracted widespread public attention. Everything that was sensationalized fell on the strip. For example, already in the first issue it was told:

about the storm in the state of New Jersey, which caused a loss of one million dollars,
published an interview with the convicted murderer on the eve of his execution,
article about the unrest on the island of Haiti
XX century
The genre of "investigative journalism" was formed by American journalists, who were called "dirtrakers". As part of this genre, the Watergate scandal was investigated (the work of reporter Carl Benstein), it was the finest hour of the industry. Later, the traditions of the genre were inherited by the American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore.

A new journalism was born there: the term was first mentioned by Thomas Wolfe in 1973 and referred to his own works and the publications of his colleagues: Truman Capote, Hunter Thompson, Norman Mailer, Joan Didion and other publicists known at that time in the United States. The author stated quite categorically:

Journalism is an art, and modern literature is an old-regime vulgarity.
It is worth noting that Wolfe's ambiguous statement belonged to the period of the 70s (when, in fact, it was made public). American journalism of those years was really the vanguard of the industry.

It was not so much about newspaper publications as about detailed essays, author's columns and articles in magazines designed for an elite reader (in the New York interpretation - advanced) - The New Yorker, New York Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Esquire, CoEvolution Quarterly. Partly - Scanlan's Monthly (if we consider only the period of the early 70s).

XXI century
As of May 23, 2008, there were 1,422 daily newspapers and 6,253 weeklies in the United States.

The popularity of daily newspapers is falling from year to year, and in these conditions it is more difficult for publications to maintain editorial independence. By 1990, there were only five daily newspapers left in New York, and at the end of the nineteenth century there were 18. And by 1995, for example, the number of daily newspapers in the United States had decreased from 1,538 to 1,532 per year.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the state of the industry has not been in the best of shape. In 2008 alone, 16,000 journalists were dismissed. The Tribune Company (which owns LA Times) has declared bankruptcy;. One of the oldest American newspapers, Rocky Mountain News, ceased to exist, putting an end to its 150-year history. The Christian Science Monitor moved to network distribution (i.e. the daily newspaper became a regular Internet resource). In the first quarter of 2009, 120 newspapers were closed in the United States. Between January and October 2009, 388 magazines were closed in North America (including conde Nast's five major media outlets and Meredith Corporation's Country Home magazine, with a circulation of 1.2 million copies. Most (130) classified publications belonged to the B2B category.U.S. publications fell 7% in the first half of 2009.