title: News

text: Some newspapers published in the 1800s and after retained the commercial orientation characteristic of the private newsletters of the Renaissance. Economically oriented newspapers published new types of data enabled the advent of statistics, especially economic statistics which could inform sophisticated investment decisions. These newspapers, too, became available for larger sections of society, not just elites, keen on investing some of their savings in the stock markets. Yet, as in the case other newspapers, the incorporation of advertising into the newspaper led to justified reservations about accepting newspaper information at face value. Economic newspapers also became promoters of economic ideologies, such as Keynesianism in the mid-1900s.


title: News

text: Newspapers came to sub-Saharan Africa via colonization. The first English-language newspaper in the area was "The Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser", established in 1801, and followed by "The Royal Gold Coast Gazette and Commercial Intelligencer" in 1822 and the "Liberia Herald" in 1826. A number of nineteenth-century African newspapers were established by missionaries. These newspapers by and large promoted the colonial governments and served the interests of European settlers by relaying news from Europe. The first newspaper published in a native African language was the "Muigwithania", published in Kikuyu by the Kenyan Central Association. "Muigwithania" and other newspapers published by indigenous Africans took strong opposition stances, agitating strongly for African independence. Newspapers were censored heavily during the colonial period—as well as after formal independence. Some liberalization and diversification took place in the 1990s.


title: News

text: Newspapers were slow to spread to the Arab world, which had a stronger tradition of oral communication, and mistrust of the European approach to news reporting. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire's leaders in Istanbul monitored the European press, but its contents were not disseminated for mass consumption. Some of the first written news in modern North Africa arose in Egypt under Muhammad Ali, who developed the local paper industry and initiated the limited circulation of news bulletins called . Beginning in the 1850s and 1860s, the private press began to develop in the multi-religious country of Lebanon.


title: News

text: The development of the electrical telegraph, which often travelled along railroad lines, enabled news to travel faster, over longer distances. (Days before Morse's Baltimore–Washington line transmitted the famous question, "What hath God wrought?", it transmitted the news that Henry Clay and Theodore Frelinghuysen had been chosen by the Whig nominating party.) Telegraph networks enabled a new centralization of the news, in the hands of wire services concentrated in major cities. The modern form of these originated with Charles-Louis Havas, who founded Bureau Havas (later Agence France-Presse) in Paris. Havas began in 1832, using the French government's optical telegraph network. In 1840 he began using pigeons for communications to Paris, London, and Brussels. Havas began to use the electric telegraph when it became available.


title: News

text: One of Havas's proteges, Bernhard Wolff, founded Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau in Berlin in 1849. Another Havas disciple, Paul Reuter, began collecting news from Germany and France in 1849, and in 1851 immigrated to London, where he established the Reuters news agency—specializing in news from the continent. In 1863, William Saunders and Edward Spender formed the Central Press agency, later called the Press Association, to handle domestic news. Just before insulated telegraph line crossed the English Channel in 1851, Reuter won the right to transmit stock exchange prices between Paris and London. He maneuvered Reuters into a dominant global position with the motto "Follow the Cable", setting up news outposts across the British Empire in Alexandria (1865), Bombay (1866), Melbourne (1874), Sydney (1874), and Cape Town (1876). In the United States, the Associated Press became a news powerhouse, gaining a lead position through an exclusive arrangement with the Western Union company.


title: News

text: The telegraph ushered in a new global communications regime, accompanied by a restructuring of the national postal systems, and closely followed by the advent of telephone lines. With the value of international news at a premium, governments, businesses, and news agencies moved aggressively to reduce transmission times. In 1865, Reuters had the scoop on the Lincoln assassination, reporting the news in England twelve days after the event took place. In 1866, an undersea telegraph cable successfully connected Ireland to Newfoundland (and thus the Western Union network) cutting trans-Atlantic transmission time from days to hours. The transatlantic cable allowed fast exchange of information about the London and New York stock exchanges, as well as the New York, Chicago, and Liverpool commodity exchanges—for the price of $5–10, in gold, per word. Transmitting On 11 May 1857, a young British telegraph operator in Delhi signaled home to alert the authorities of the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The rebels proceeded to disrupt the British telegraph network, which was rebuilt with more redundancies. In 1902–1903, Britain and the U.S. completed the circumtelegraphy of the planet with transpacific cables from Canada to Fiji and New Zealand (British Empire), and from the US to Hawaii and the occupied Philippines. U.S. reassertions of the Monroe Doctrine notwithstanding, Latin America was a battleground of competing telegraphic interests until World War I, after which U.S. interests finally did consolidate their power in the hemisphere.


title: News

text: By the turn of the century (i.e., circa 1900), Wolff, Havas, and Reuters formed a news cartel, dividing up the global market into three sections, in which each had more-or-less exclusive distribution rights and relationships with national agencies. Each agency's area corresponded roughly to the colonial sphere of its mother country. Reuters and the Australian national news service had an agreement to exchange news only with each other. Due to the high cost of maintaining infrastructure, political goodwill, and global reach, newcomers found it virtually impossible to challenge the big three European agencies or the American Associated Press. In 1890 Reuters (in partnership with the Press Association, England's major news agency for domestic stories) expanded into "soft" news stories for public consumption, about topics such as sports and "human interest". In 1904, the big three wire services opened relations with "Vestnik", the news agency of Czarist Russia, to their group, though they maintained their own reporters in Moscow. During and after the Russian Revolution, the outside agencies maintained a working relationship with the Petrograd Telegraph Agency, renamed the Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA) and eventually the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS).


title: News

text: The Chinese Communist Party created its news agency, the Red China News Agency, in 1931; its primary responsibilities were the "Red China" newspaper and the internal "Reference News". In 1937, the Party renamed the agency "Xinhua", New China. Xinhua became the official news agency of the People's Republic of China in 1949.


title: News

text: These agencies touted their ability to distill events into "minute globules of news", 20–30 word summaries which conveyed the essence of new developments. Unlike newspapers, and contrary to the sentiments of some of their reporters, the agencies sought to keep their reports simple and factual. The wire services brought forth the "inverted pyramid" model of news copy, in which key facts appear at the start of the text, and more and more details are included as it goes along. The sparse telegraphic writing style spilled over into newspapers, which often reprinted stories from the wire with little embellishment. In a 20 September 1918 "Pravda" editorial, Lenin instructed the Soviet press to cut back on their political rambling and produce many short anticapitalist news items in "telegraph style".


title: News

text: As in previous eras, the news agencies provided special services to political and business clients, and these services constituted a significant portion of their operations and income. The wire services maintained close relationships with their respective national governments, which provided both press releases and payments. The acceleration and centralization of economic news facilitated regional economic integration and economic globalization. "It was the decrease in information costs and the increasing communication speed that stood at the roots of increased market integration, rather than falling transport costs by itself. In order to send goods to another area, merchants needed to know first whether in fact to send off the goods and to what place. Information costs and speed were essential for these decisions."


title: News

text: The British Broadcasting Company began transmitting radio news from London in 1922, dependent entirely, by law, on the British news agencies. BBC radio marketed itself as a news by and for social elites, and hired only broadcasters who spoke with upper-class accents. The BBC gained importance in the May 1926 general strike, during which newspapers were closed and the radio served as the only source of news for an uncertain public. (To the displeasure of many listeners, the BBC took an unambiguously pro-government stance against the strikers).


title: News

text: In the US, RCA's Radio Group established its radio network, NBC, in 1926. The Paley family founded CBS soon after. These two networks, which supplied news broadcasts to subsidiaries and affiliates, dominated the airwaves throughout the period of radio's hegemony as a news source. Radio broadcasters in the United States negotiated a similar arrangement with the press in 1933, when they agreed to use only news from the Press–Radio Bureau and eschew advertising; this agreement soon collapsed and radio stations began reporting their own news (with advertising). As in Britain, American news radio avoided "controversial" topics as per norms established by the National Association of Broadcasters. By 1939, 58% of Americans surveyed by "Fortune" considered radio news more accurate than newspapers, and 70% chose radio as their main news source. Radio expanded rapidly across the continent, from 30 stations in 1920 to a thousand in the 1930s. This operation was financed mostly with advertising and public relations money.


title: News

text: The Soviet Union began a major international broadcasting operation in 1929, with stations in German, English and French. The Nazi Party made use of the radio in its rise to power in Germany, with much of its propaganda focused on attacking the Soviet Bolsheviks. The British and Italian foreign radio services competed for influence in North Africa. All four of these broadcast services grew increasingly vitriolic as the European nations prepared for war.


title: News

text: The war provided an opportunity to expand radio and take advantage of its new potential. The BBC reported on Allied invasion of Normandy on 8:00 a.m. of the morning it took place, and including a clip from German radio coverage of the same event. Listeners followed along with developments throughout the day. The U.S. set up its Office of War Information which by 1942 sent programming across South America, the Middle East, and East Asia. Radio Luxembourg, a centrally located high-power station on the continent, was seized by Germany, and then by the United States—which created fake news programs appearing as though they were created by Germany. Targeting American troops in the Pacific, the Japanese government broadcast the "Zero Hour" program, which included news from the U.S. to make the soldiers homesick. But by the end of the war, Britain had the largest radio network in the world, broadcasting internationally in 43 different languages. Its scope would eventually be surpassed (by 1955) by the worldwide Voice of America programs, produced by the United States Information Agency.


title: News

text: In Britain and the United States, television news watching rose dramatically in the 1950s and by the 1960s supplanted radio as the public's primary source of news. In the U.S., television was run by the same networks which owned radio: CBS, NBC, and an NBC spin-off called ABC. Edward R. Murrow, who first entered the public ear as a war reporter in London, made the big leap to television to become an iconic newsman on CBS (and later the director of the United States Information Agency).


title: News

text: Ted Turner's creation of the Cable News Network (CNN) in 1980 inaugurated a new era of 24-hour satellite news broadcasting. In 1991, the BBC introduced a competitor, BBC World Service Television. Rupert Murdoch's Australian News Corporation entered the picture with Fox News Channel in the US, Sky News in Britain, and STAR TV in Asia. Combining this new apparatus with the use of embedded reporters, the United States waged the 1991–1992 Gulf War with the assistance of nonstop media coverage. CNN's specialty is the crisis, to which the network is prepared to shift its total attention if so chosen. CNN news was transmitted via INTELSAT communications satellites. CNN, said an executive, would bring a "town crier to the global village".


title: News

text: In 1996, the Qatar-owned broadcaster Al Jazeera emerged as a powerful alternative to the Western media, capitalizing in part on anger in the Arab & Muslim world regarding biased coverage of the Gulf War. Al Jazeera hired many news workers conveniently laid off by BBC Arabic Television, which closed in April 1996. It used Arabsat to broadcast.


title: News

text: The early internet, known as ARPANET, was controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense and used mostly by academics. It became available to a wider public with the release of the Netscape browser in 1994. At first, news websites were mostly archives of print publications. An early online newspaper was the "Electronic Telegraph", published by "The Daily Telegraph". A 1994 earthquake in California was one of the first big stories to be reported online in real time. The new availability of web browsing made news sites accessible to more people. On the day of the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, people flocked to newsgroups and chatrooms to discuss the situation and share information. The "Oklahoma City Daily" posted news to its site within hours. Two of the only news sites capable of hosting images, the "San Jose Mercury News" and "Time" magazine, posted photographs of the scene.


title: News

text: Quantitatively, the internet has massively expanded the sheer volume of news items available to one person. The speed of news flow to individuals has also reached a new plateau. This insurmountable flow of news can daunt people and cause information overload. Zbigniew Brzezinski called this period the "technetronic era", in which "global reality increasingly absorbs the individual, involves him, and even occasionally overwhelms him."


title: News

text: In cases of government crackdowns or revolutions, the Internet has often become a major communication channel for news propagation; while it's a (relatively) simple act to shut down a newspaper, radio or television station, mobile devices such as smartphones and netbooks are much harder to detect and confiscate. The propagation of internet-capable mobile devices has also given rise to the citizen journalist, who provide an additional perspective on unfolding events.


title: News

text: News can travel through different communication media. In modern times, printed news had to be phoned into a newsroom or brought there by a reporter, where it was typed and either transmitted over wire services or edited and manually set in type along with other news stories for a specific edition. Today, the term "breaking news" has become trite as commercial broadcasting United States cable news services that are available 24 hours a day use live communications satellite technology to bring current events into consumers' homes as the event occurs. Events that used to take hours or days to become common knowledge in towns or in nations are fed instantaneously to consumers via radio, television, mobile phone, and the internet.


title: News

text: Most large cities in the United States historically had morning and afternoon newspapers. With the addition of new communications media, afternoon newspapers have shut down and morning newspapers have lost circulation. Weekly newspapers have somewhat increased. In more and more cities, newspapers have established local market monopolies—i.e., a single newspaper is the only one in town. This process has accelerated since the 1980s, commensurate with a general trend of consolidation in media ownership. In China, too, newspapers have gained exclusive status, city-by-city, and pooled into large associations such as Chengdu Business News. These associations function like news agencies, challenging the hegemony of Xinhua as a news provider.


title: News

text: About one-third of newspaper revenue comes from sales; the majority comes from advertising. Newspapers have struggled to maintain revenue given declining circulation and the free flow of information over the internet; some have implemented paywalls for their websites.


title: News

text: In the U.S., many newspapers have shifted their operations online, publishing around the clock rather than daily in order to keep pace with the internet society. Prognosticators have suggested that print newspapers will vanish from the U.S. in 5–20 years. Many newspapers have started to track social media engagement for trending news stories to cover.


title: News

text: Internationally distributed news channels include BBC News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CBC News Network, and Sky News. Televisions are densely concentrated in the United States (98% of households), and the average American watches 4 hours of television programming each day. In other parts of the world, such as Kenya—especially rural areas without much electricity—televisions are rare.


title: News

text: The largest supplier of international video news is Reuters TV, with 409 subscribers in 83 countries, 38 bureaus, and a reported audience of 1.5 billion people each day. The other major video news service is Associated Press Television News. These two major agencies have agreements to exchange video news with ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Eurovision—itself a sizeable video news exchange. CNN International is a notable broadcaster in times of crisis.


title: News

text: Online journalism is news that is reported on the internet. News can be delivered more quickly through this method of news as well as accessed more easily. The internet era has transformed the understanding of news. Because the internet allows communication which is not only instantaneous, but also bi- or multi-directional, it has blurred the boundaries of who is a legitimate news producer. A common type of internet journalism is called blogging, which is a service of persistently written articles uploaded and written by one or more individuals. Millions of people in countries such as the United States and South Korea have taken up blogging. Many blogs have rather small audiences; some blogs are read by millions each month. Social media sites, especially Twitter and Facebook, have become an important source of breaking news information and for disseminating links to news websites. Twitter declared in 2012: "It's like being delivered a newspaper whose headlines you'll always find interesting—you can discover news as it's happening, learn more about topics that are important to you, and get the inside scoop in real time." Cell phone cameras have normalized citizen photojournalism.


title: News

text: Michael Schudson, professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has said that "[e]verything we thought we once knew about journalism needs to be rethought in the Digital Age." Today the work of journalism can be done from anywhere and done well. It requires no more than a reporter and a laptop. In that way, journalistic authority seems to have become more individual- and less institution-based. But does the individual reporter always have to be an actual journalist? Or can journalistic work be done from anywhere and by anyone? These are questions that refer to the core of journalistic practice and the definition of "news" itself. As Schudson has given emphasis to, the answer is not easily found; "the ground journalists walk upon is shaking, and the experience for both those who work in the field and those on the outside studying it is dizzying".


title: News

text: Schudson has identified the following six specific areas where the ecology of news in his opinion has changed:


title: News

text: These alterations inevitably have fundamental ramifications for the contemporary ecology of news. "The boundaries of journalism, which just a few years ago seemed relatively clear, and permanent, have become less distinct, and this blurring, while potentially the foundation of progress even as it is the source of risk, has given rise to a new set of journalistic principles and practices", Schudson puts it. It is indeed complex, but it seems to be the future.


title: News

text: Online news has also changed the geographic reach of individual news stories, diffusing readership from city-by-city markets to a potentially global audience.


title: News

text: The growth of social media networks have also created new opportunities for automated and efficient news gathering for journalists and newsrooms. Many newsrooms (broadcasters, newspapers, magazines, radio and TV) have started to perform news gathering on social media platforms. Social media is creating changes in the consumer behaviour and news consumption. According to a study by Pew Research, a large portion of Americans read news on digital and on mobile devices.


title: News

text: Because internet does not have the "column inches" limitation of print media, online news stories can, but don't always, come bundled with supplementary material. The medium of the World Wide Web also enables hyperlinking, which allows readers to navigate to other pages related to the one they're reading.


title: News

text: Despite these changes, some studies have concluded that internet news coverage remains fairly homogenous and dominated by news agencies. And journalists working with online media do not identify significantly different criteria for newsworthiness than print journalists.


title: News

text: News agencies are services which compile news and disseminate it in bulk. Because they disseminate information to a wide variety of clients, who repackage the material as news for public consumption, news agencies tend to use less controversial language in their reports. Despite their importance, news agencies are not well known by the general public. They keep low profiles and their reporters usually do not get bylines.


title: News

text: The oldest news agency still operating is the Agence France-Presse (AFP). It was founded in 1835 by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence Havas. By the end of the twentieth century, Reuters far outpaced the other news agencies in profits, and became one of the largest companies in Europe. In 2011, Thomson Reuters employed more than 55,000 people in 100 countries, and posted an annual revenue of $12.9 billion.


title: News

text: United Press International gained prominence as a world news agency in the middle of the twentieth century, but shrank in the 1980s and was sold off at low prices. It is owned by the Unification Church company News World Communications.


title: News

text: News agencies, especially Reuters and the newly important Bloomberg News, convey both news stories for mass audiences and financial information of interest to businesses and investors. Bloomberg LP, a private company founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, made rapid advances with computerized stock market reporting updated in real time. Its news service continued to exploit this electronic advantage by combining computer-generated analytics with text reporting. Bloomberg linked with Agence France Presse in the 1990s.


title: News

text: Following the marketization of the Chinese economy and the media boom of the 1990s, Xinhua has adopted some commercial practices including subscription fees, but it remains government-subsidized. It provides newswire, news photos, economic information, and audio and video news. Xinhua has a growing number of subscribers, totaling 16,969 in 2002, including 93% of Chinese newspapers. It operates 123 foreign bureaus and produces 300 news stories each day.


title: News

text: Other agencies with considerable reach include Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Germany), Kyodo News (Japan), the "Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata" (Italy), the Middle East News Agency (Egypt), Tanjug (Serbia), EFE (Spain), and Anadolu Agency (Turkey).


title: News

text: On the internet, news aggregators play a role similar to that of the news agency—and, because of the sources they select, tend to transmit news stories which originate from the main agencies. Of articles displayed by Yahoo! News in the U.S., 91.7% come from news agencies: 39.4% from AP, 30.9% AFP, and 21.3% Reuters. In India, 60.1% of Yahoo! News stories come from Reuters. Google News relies somewhat less on news agencies, and has shown high volatility, in the sense of focusing heavily on the most recent handful of salient world events. In 2010, Google News redesigned its front page with automatic geotargeting, which generated a selection of local news items for every viewer.


title: News

text: In the 20th century, global news coverage was dominated by a combination of the "Big Four" news agencies—Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France Press, and United Press International—representing the Western bloc, and the Communist agencies: TASS from the Soviet Union, and Xinhua from China. Studies of major world events, and analyses of all international news coverage in various newspapers, consistently found that a large majority of news items originated from the four biggest wire services.


title: News

text: Television news agencies include Associated Press Television News, which bought and incorporated World Television News; and Reuters Television. Bloomberg News created in the 1990s, expanded rapidly to become a player in the realm of international news. The Associated Press also maintains a radio network with thousands of subscribers worldwide; it is the sole provider of international news to many small stations.


title: News

text: By some accounts, dating back to the 1940s, the increasing interconnectedness of the news system has accelerated the pace of human history itself.


title: News

text: The global news system is dominated by agencies from Europe and the United States, and reflects their interests and priorities in its coverage. Euro-American control of the global news system has led to criticism; that events around the world are constantly compared to events like the Holocaust and World War II, which are considered foundational in the West. Since the 1960s, a significant amount of news reporting from the Third World has been characterized by some form "development journalism", a paradigm which focuses on long-term development projects, social change, and nation-building. When in 1987 the U.S. media reported on a riot in the Dominican Republic—the first major news item regarding that country in years—the resulting decline in tourism lasted for years and had a noticeable effect on the economy. The English language predominates in global news exchanges. Critics have accused the global news system of perpetuating cultural imperialism. Critics further charge that the Western media conglomerates maintain a bias towards the status quo economic order, especially a pro-corporate bias.


title: News

text: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has promoted a New World Information and Communication Order, which envisions an international news exchange system involving national news agencies in every country. UNESCO encouraged the new states formed from colonial territories in the 1960s to establish news agencies, to generate domestic news stories, exchange news items with international partners, and disseminate both types of news internally. Along these lines, the 1980 MacBride report, "Many Voices, One World", called for an interdependent global news system with more participation from different governments. To this end, also, UNESCO formed the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool.


title: News

text: The Inter Press Service, founded in 1964, has served as an intermediary for Third World press agencies. Inter Press Service's editorial policy favors coverage of events, institutions, and issues which relate to inequality, economic development, economic integration, natural resources, population, health, education, and sustainable development. It gives less coverage than other agencies to crime, disasters, and violence. Geographically, 70% of its news reporting concerns Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. IPS has the most subscribers in Latin America and southern Africa. IPS receives grants from organizations such as the United Nations Development Program and other United Nations agencies and private foundations to report news on chosen topics, including the environment, sustainable development, and women's issues.


title: News

text: Beginning in the 1960s, the United States Agency for International Development, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and UNESCO developed the use of satellite television for international broadcasting. In India, 1975–1976, these agencies implemented an experimental satellite television system, called the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, with assistance from the Indian Space Research Organisation, and All India Radio.


title: News

text: By the 1980s, much of the Third World had succumbed to a debt crisis resulting from unpayable large loans accumulated since the 1960s. At this point, the World Bank took an active role in the governance of many countries, and its authority extended to communications policy. The policy of developing Third World media gave way to a global regime of free trade institutions like the World Trade Organization, which also protected the free flow of information across borders. The World Bank also promoted privatization of national telecommunications, which afforded large multinational corporations the opportunity to purchase networks and expand operations in the Third World.


title: News

text: In countries with less telecommunications infrastructure, people, especially youth, tend today to get their news predominantly from mobile phones and, less so, from the internet. Older folks listen more to the radio. The government of China is a major investor in Third World telecommunications, especially in Africa. Some issues relating to global information flow were revisited in light of the internet at the 2003/2005 World Summit on the Information Society, a conference which emphasized the role of civil society and the private sector in information society governance.


title: News

text: News values are the professional norms of journalism. Commonly, news content should contain all the "Five Ws" (who, what, when, where, why, and also how) of an event. Newspapers normally place hard news stories on the first pages, so the most important information is at the beginning, enabling busy readers to read as little or as much as they desire. Local stations and networks with a set format must take news stories and break them down into the most important aspects due to time constraints.


title: News

text: Journalists are often expected to aim for objectivity; reporters claim to try to cover all sides of an issue without bias, as compared to commentators or analysts, who provide opinion or personal points of view. The resulting articles lay out facts in a sterile, noncommittal manner, standing back to "let the reader decide" the truth of the matter. Several governments impose certain constraints against bias. In the United Kingdom, the government agency of Ofcom (Office of Communications) enforces a legal requirement of "impartiality" on news broadcasters. Both newspapers and broadcast news programs in the United States are generally expected to remain neutral and avoid bias except for clearly indicated editorial articles or segments. Many single-party governments have operated state-run news organizations, which may present the government's views.


title: News

text: Although newswriters have always laid claim to truth and objectivity, the modern values of professional journalism were established beginning in the late 1800s and especially after World War I, when groups like the American Society of Newspaper Editors codified rules for unbiased news reporting. These norms held the most sway in American and British journalism, and were scorned by some other countries. These ideas have become part of the practice of journalism across the world. Soviet commentators said stories in the Western press were trivial distractions from reality, and emphasized a socialist realism model focusing on developments in everyday life.


title: News

text: Even in those situations where objectivity is expected, it is difficult to achieve, and individual journalists may fall foul of their own personal bias, or succumb to commercial or political pressure. Similarly, the objectivity of news organizations owned by conglomerated corporations fairly may be questioned, in light of the natural incentive for such groups to report news in a manner intended to advance the conglomerate's financial interests. Individuals and organizations who are the subject of news reports may use news management techniques to try to make a favourable impression. Because each individual has a particular point of view, it is recognized that there can be no absolute objectivity in news reporting. Journalists can collectively shift their opinion over what is a controversy up for debate and what is an established fact, as evidenced by homogenization during the 2000s of news coverage of climate change.


title: News

text: Some commentators on news values have argued that journalists' training in news values "itself" represents a systemic bias of the news. The norm of objectivity leads journalists to gravitate towards certain types of acts and exclude others. A journalist can be sure of objectivity in reporting that an official or public figure has made a certain statement. This is one reason why so much news reporting is devoted to official statements. This lemma dates back to the early history of public news reporting, as exemplified by an English printer who on 12 March 1624 published news from Brussels in the form of letters, with the prefacing comment: "Now because you shall not say, that either out of my owne conceit I misliked a phrase, or presumptuously tooke upon me to reforme any thing amisse, I will truly set you downe their owne words."


title: News

text: Feminist critiques argue that discourse defined as objective by news organizations reflects a male-centered perspective. In their selection of sources, journalists rely heavily on men as sources of authoritative- and objective-seeming statements. News reporting has also tended to discuss women differently, usually in terms of appearance and relationship to men.


title: News

text: The critique of traditional norms of objectivity comes from within news organizations as well. Said Peter Horrocks, head of television news at BBC: "The days of middle-of-the-road, balancing Left and Right, impartiality are dead. […] we need to consider adopting what I like to think of as a much wider 'radical impartiality'—the need to hear the widest range of views—all sides of the story."


title: News

text: Viewed from a sociological perspective, news for mass consumption is produced in hierarchical organizations. Reporters, working near the bottom of the structure, are given significant autonomy in researching and preparing reports, subject to assignments and occasional intervention from higher decision-makers. Owners at the top of the news hierarchy influence the content of news indirectly but substantially. The professional norms of journalism discourage overt censorship; however, news organizations have covert but firm norms about how to cover certain topics. These policies are conveyed to journalists through socialization on the job; without any written policy, they simply learn how things are done. Journalists comply with these rules for various reasons, including job security. Journalists are also systematically influenced by their education, including journalism school.


title: News

text: News production is routinized in several ways. News stories use familiar formats and subgenres which vary by topic. "Rituals of objectivity", such as pairing a quotation from one group with a quotation from a competing group, dictate the construction of most news narratives. Many news items revolve around periodic press conferences or other scheduled events. Further routine is established by assigning each journalist to a beat: a domain of human affairs, usually involving government or commerce, in which certain types of events routinely occur.


title: News

text: A common scholarly frame for understanding news production is to examine the role of information gatekeepers: to ask why and how certain narratives make their way from news producers to news consumers. Obvious gatekeepers include journalists, news agency staff, and wire editors of newspapers. Ideology, personal preferences, source of news, and length of a story are among the many considerations which influence gatekeepers. Although social media have changed the structure of news dissemination, gatekeeper effects may continue due to the role of a few central nodes in the social network.


title: News

text: New factors have emerged in internet-era newsrooms. One issue is "click-thinking", the editorial selection of news stories—and of journalists—who can generate the most website hits and thus advertising revenue. Unlike a newspaper, a news website has detailed data collection about which stories are popular and who is reading them. The drive for speedy online postings, some journalists have acknowledged, has altered norms of fact-checking so that verification takes place after publication.


title: News

text: Journalists' sometimes unattributed echoing of other news sources can also increase the homogeneity of news feeds. The digital age can accelerate the problem of circular reporting: propagation of the same error through increasingly reliable sources. In 2009, a number of journalists were embarrassed after all reproducing a fictional quotation, originating from Wikipedia.


title: News

text: News organizations have historically been male-dominated, though women have acted as journalists since at least the 1880s. The number of female journalists has increased over time, but organizational hierarchies remain controlled mostly by men. Studies of British news organizations estimate that more than 80% of decision-makers are men. Similar studies have found 'old boys' networks' in control of news organizations in the United States and the Netherlands. Further, newsrooms tend to divide journalists by gender, assigning men to "hard" topics like military, crime, and economics, and women to "soft", "humanised" topics.


title: News

text: For various reasons, news media usually have a close relationship with the state, and often church as well, even when they cast themselves in critical roles. This relationship seems to emerge because the press can develop symbiotic relationships with other powerful social institutions. In the United States, the Associated Press wire service developed a "bilateral monopoly" with the Western Union telegraph company.


title: News

text: The news agencies which rose to power in the mid-1800s all had support from their respective governments, and in turn served their political interests to some degree. News for consumption has operated under statist assumptions, even when it takes a stance adversarial to some aspect of a government. In practice, a large proportion of routine news production involves interactions between reporters and government officials. Relatedly, journalists tend to adopt a hierarchical view of society, according to which a few people at the top of organizational pyramids are best situated to comment on the reality which serves as the basisi of news. Broadly speaking, therefore, news tends to normalize and reflect the interests of the power structure dominant in its social context.


title: News

text: Today, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) rival and may surpass governments in their influence on the content of news.


title: News

text: Governments use international news transmissions to promote the national interest and conduct political warfare, alternatively known as public diplomacy and, in the modern era, international broadcasting. International radio broadcasting came into wide-ranging use by world powers seeking cultural integration of their empires. The British government used BBC radio as a diplomatic tool, setting up Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese services in 1937. American propaganda broadcasters include Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, set up during the Cold War and still operating today. The United States remains the world's top broadcaster, although by some accounts it was surpassed for a time circa 1980 by the Soviet Union. Other major international broadcasters include the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, North Korea, India, Cuba, and Australia. Around the world (and especially, formerly, in the Soviet bloc), international news sources such as the BBC World Service are often welcomed as alternatives to domestic state-run media.


title: News

text: Governments have also funneled programming through private news organizations, as when the British government arranged to insert news into the Reuters feed during and after World War Two. Past revelations have suggested that the U.S. military and intelligence agencies create news stories which they disseminate secretly into the foreign and domestic media. Investigation into the Central Intelligence Agency pursued in the 1970s found that it owned hundreds of news organizations (wire services, newspapers, magazines) outright. Soviet news warfare also involved the creation of front groups, like the International Organization of Journalists. The Russian KGB heavily pursued a strategy of disinformation, planting false stories which made their way to news outlets worldwide.


title: News

text: Broadcasts into Iraq before the Second Gulf War mimicked the style of local programming. The US also launched Middle East Broadcasting Networks, featuring the satellite TV station Alhurra and radio station Radio Sawa to beam 24-hour programming to Iraq and environs.


title: News

text: Today, Al Jazeera, a TV and internet news network owned by the government of Qatar, has become one of the foremost news sources in the world, appreciated by millions as an alternative to the Western media. State-owned China Central Television operates 18 channels and reaches more than a billion viewers worldwide. Iran's Press TV and Russia's Russia Today, branded as RT, also have multiplatform presences and large audiences.


title: News

text: As distinct from advertising, which deals with marketing distinct from news, public relations involves the techniques of influencing news in order to give a certain impression to the public. A standard public relations tactic, the "third-party technique", is the creation of seemingly independent organizations, which can deliver objective-sounding statements to news organizations without revealing their corporate connections. Public relations agencies can create complete content packages, such as Video News Releases, which are rebroadcast as news without commentary or detail about their origin. Video news releases seem like normal news programming, but use subtle product placement and other techniques to influence viewers.


title: News

text: Public relations releases offer valuable newsworthy information to increasingly overworked journalists on deadline. (This pre-organized news content has been called an information subsidy.) The journalist relies on appearances of autonomy and even opposition to established interests—but the public relations agent seek to conceal their client's influence on the news. Thus, public relations works its magic in secret.


title: News

text: Public relations can dovetail with state objectives, as in the case of the 1990 news story about Iraqi soldiers taking "babies out of incubators" in Kuwaiti hospitals. During the Nigerian Civil War, both the federal government and the secessionist Republic of Biafra hired public relations firms, which competed to influence public opinion in the West, and between them established some of the key narratives employed in news reports about the war.


title: News

text: Overall, the position of the public relations industry has grown stronger, while the position of news producers has grown weaker. Public relations agents mediate the production of news about all sectors of society.


title: News

text: Over the centuries, commentators on newspapers and society have repeatedly observed widespread human interest in news. Elite members of a society's political and economic institutions might rely on news as one limited source of information, for the masses, news represents a relatively exclusive window onto the operations by which a society is managed.


title: News

text: Regular people in societies with news media often spend a lot of time reading or watching news reports. Newspapers became significant aspects of national and literary culture—as exemplified by James Joyce's "Ulysses", which derives from the newspapers of 16 June (and thereabouts), 1904, and represents the newspaper office itself as a vital part of life in Dublin.


title: News

text: A 1945 study by sociologist Bernard Berelson found that during the 1945 New York newspaper strike, New Yorkers exhibited a virtual addiction to news, describing themselves as "lost", "nervous", "isolated", and "suffering" due to the withdrawal. Television news has become still further embedded in everyday life, with specific programming anticipated at different times of day. Children tend to find the news boring, too serious, or emotionally disturbing. They come to perceive news as characteristic of adulthood, and begin watching television news in their teenage years because of the adult status it confers.


title: News

text: People exhibit various forms of skepticism towards the news. Studies of tabloid readers found that many of them gain pleasure from seeing through the obviously fake or poorly constructed stories—and get their "real news" from television.


title: News

text: An important feature distinguishing news from private information transfers is the impression that when one reads (or hears, or watches) it, one joins a larger public. In this regard news serves to unify its receivers under the banner of a culture, or a society, as well as into the sub-demographics of a society targeted by their favorite kind of news. News thus plays a role in nation-building, the construction of a national identity.


title: News

text: Images connected with news can also become iconic and gain a fixed role in the culture. Examples such as Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph "V-J Day in Times Square", Nick Ut's photograph of Phan Thi Kim Phuc and other children running from a napalm blast in Vietnam; Kevin Carter's photograph of a starving child being stalked by a vulture; etc.


title: News

text: With the new interconnectedness of global media, the experience of receiving news along with a world audience reinforces the social cohesion effect on a larger scale. As a corollary, global media culture may erode the uniqueness and cohesion of national cultures.


title: News

text: This collective form experience can be understood to constitute a political realm or public sphere. In this view, the news media constitute a fourth estate which serves to check and balance the operations of government.


title: News

text: This idea, at least as a goal to be sought, has re-emerged in the era of global communications. Today, unprecedented opportunities exist for public analysis and discussion of world events. According to one interpretation of the CNN effect, instantaneous global news coverage can rally public opinion as never before to motivate political action. In 1989, local and global communications media-enabled instant exposure to and discussion of the Chinese government's actions in Tiananmen Square. The news about Tiananmen Square travelled over a fax machine, telephone, newspaper, radio, and television, and continued to travel even after the government imposed new restrictions on local telecommunications.


title: News

text: As the technological means for disseminating news grew more powerful, news became an experience which millions of people could undergo simultaneously. Outstanding news experiences can exert a profound influence on millions of people. Through its power to effect a shared experience, news events can mold the collective memory of a society.


title: News

text: One type of news event, the media event, is a scripted pageant organized for a mass live broadcast. Media events include athletic contests such as the Super Bowl and the Olympics, cultural events like awards ceremonies and celebrity funerals, and also political events such as coronations, debates between electoral candidates, and diplomatic ceremonies. These events typically unfold according to a common format which simplifies the transmission of news items about them. Usually, they have the effect of increasing the perceived unity of all parties involved, which include the broadcasters and audience. Today, international events such as a national declaration of independence can be scripted in advance with the major news agencies, with staff specially deployed to key locations worldwide in advance of the life news broadcast. Public relations companies can participate in these events as well.


title: News

text: The perception that an ongoing crisis is taking place further increases the significance of live news. People rely on the news and constantly seek more of it, to learn new information and to seek reassurance amidst feelings of fear and uncertainty. Crises can also increase the effect of the news on social cohesion, and lead the population of a country to "rally" behind its current leadership. The rise of a global news system goes hand in hand with the advent of terrorism and other sensational acts, which have power in proportion to the audience they capture. In 1979, the capture of American hostages in Iran dominated months of news coverage in the western media, gained the status of a "crisis", and influenced a presidential election.


title: News

text: South Africans overwhelmingly describe the end of Apartheid as a source of the country's most important news. In the United States, news events such as the assassinations of the 1960s (of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy), the 1969 moon landing, the 1986 Challenger explosion, the 1997 death of Princess Diana, the intervention of the Supreme Court in the 2000 presidential election and the 2001 September 11 attacks. In Jordan, people cited numerous memorable news events involving death and war, including the death of King Hussein, Princess Diana, and Yitzhak Rabin. Positive news stories found memorable by Jordanians featured political events affecting their lives and families—such as the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon, and the Israel–Jordan peace treaty.


title: News

text: News coverage can also shape collective memory in retrospect. A study of Israeli news coverage leading up to the media event of the nation's 60th birthday found that news coverage of events like the Holocaust, World War Two, and subsequent Israeli wars increased the perceived importance of these events in the minds of citizens.


title: News

text: News making is the act of making the news or doing something that is considered to be newsworthy. When discussing the act of news making, scholars refer to specific models. Five of these models are the Professional Model, Mirror Model, Organizational Model, Political Model, and Civic Journalism Model.


title: News

text: The Professional Model is when skilled peoples put certain events together for a specific audience. The reaction of the audience is influential because it can determine the impact that the particular article or newspaper has on the readers. The Mirror Model states that news should reflect reality. This model aims to focus on particular events and provide accuracy in reporting. The Organizational Model is also known as the Bargaining Model. It focuses on influencing various news organizations by applying pressures to governmental processes. The Political Model outlines that news represents the ideological biases of the people as well as the various pressures of the political environment. This model mainly influences journalists and attempts to promote public opinion. The Civic Journalism Model is when the press discovers the concerns of the people and uses that to write stories. This allows the audience to play an active role in society.


title: News

text: Models of news making help define what the news is and how it influences readers. But it does not necessarily account for the content of print news and online media. Stories are selected if they have a strong impact, incorporate violence and scandal, are familiar and local, and if they are timely.


title: News

text: News Stories with a strong impact can be easily understood by a reader. Violence and scandal create an entertaining and attention-grabbing story. Familiarity makes a story more relatable because the reader knows who is being talked about. Proximity can influence a reader more. A story that is timely will receive more coverage because it is a current event. The process of selecting stories coupled with the models of news making are how the media is effective and impactful in society.


title: News

text: Exposure to constant news coverage of war can lead to stress and anxiety. Television coverage of the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001, which repeated the same footage over and over, led to symptoms of trauma experienced across the United States. Studies have indicated that children have been traumatized by exposure to television of other frightening events, including the Challenger disaster. Journalists themselves also experience trauma and guilt.


title: News

text: Research also suggest that constant representations of violence in the news lead people to overestimate the frequency of its occurrence in the real world, thus increasing their level of fear in everyday situations.


title: News

text: The content and style of news delivery certainly have effects on the general public, with the magnitude and precise nature of these effects being tough to determine experimentally. In Western societies, television viewing has been so ubiquitous that its total effect on psychology and culture leave few alternatives for comparison.


title: News

text: News is the leading source of knowledge about global affairs for people around the world. According to agenda-setting theory, the general public will identify as its priorities those issues which are highlighted on the news. The agenda-setting model has been well-supported by research, which indicate that the public's self-reported concerns respond to changes in news coverage rather than changes in the underlying issue itself. The less an issue obviously affects people's lives, the bigger an influence media agenda-setting can have on their opinion of it. The agenda-setting power becomes even stronger in practice because of the correspondence in news topics promulgated by different media channels.


title: News

text: It has been acknowledged that sponsorship has historically influenced various news stories. This history gained widespread attention following the release of the film "Anchorman 2". One example in recent time is the fact that Facebook has invested heavily in news sources and purchasing time on local news media outlets. "TechCrunch" journalist Josh Continue even stated in February 2018 that the company "stole the news business" and used sponsorship to make many news publishers its "ghostwriters." In January 2019, founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that he will spend $300 million in local news buys over a three-year period.


title: Daniel Durant

text: Daniel N. Durant (born December 24, 1989) is an American stage and screen actor. His breakthrough starring role was as Moritz Stiefel in the 2015 Broadway revival of "Spring Awakening". Durant starred in the Academy Award-winning film "CODA" (2021). He and the cast won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, along with the award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards. On television, he is known for his recurring role in the ABC Family series "Switched at Birth" (2013–2017).


title: Daniel Durant

text: Durant was born deaf in Detroit, Michigan to deaf parents who struggled with addiction; he was adopted as a toddler by his paternal aunt Lori Durant and later her wife Mary Engels. He grew up in Duluth, Minnesota. He attended the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf in Faribault and graduated in 2008. He studied at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in Rochester, New York, receiving an associate degree in applied computer technology in 2011. He subsequently attended Gallaudet University, earning a degree in 2014.


title: Daniel Durant

text: On September 8, 2022, Durant was announced as a contestant on season 31 of "Dancing with the Stars". He is partnered with Britt Stewart.


title: Swiss Guard

text: is an armed force and honour guard unit maintained by the Holy See that protects the Pope and the Apostolic Palace within the territory of the Vatican City. Established in 1506 under Pope Julius II, the Pontifical Swiss Guard is among the oldest military units in continuous operation.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The Swiss Guard are equipped with traditional weapons, such as the halberd, as well as with modern firearms. Since the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1981, a much stronger emphasis has been placed on the Guard's non-ceremonial roles, and has seen enhanced training in unarmed combat and small arms.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Recruits to the guards must be unmarried Swiss Catholic males between 18 and 30 years of age who have completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The Pontifical Swiss Guard has its origins in the 15th century. Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) had already made an alliance with the Swiss Confederacy and built barracks in Via Pellegrino after foreseeing the possibility of recruiting Swiss mercenaries. The pact was renewed by Pope Innocent VIII (1484–1492) in order to use Swiss troops against the Duke of Milan. Alexander VI (1492–1503) later actually used the Swiss mercenaries during their alliance with the King of France. During the time of the Borgias, however, the Italian Wars began in which the Swiss mercenaries were a fixture in the front lines among the warring factions, sometimes for France and sometimes for the Holy See or the Holy Roman Empire. The mercenaries enlisted when they heard King Charles VIII of France was going to war with Naples. Among the participants in the war against Naples was Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, the future Pope Julius II (1503–1513), who was well acquainted with the Swiss, having been Bishop of Lausanne years earlier.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The expedition failed, in part thanks to new alliances made by Alexander VI against the French. When Cardinal della Rovere became Pope Julius II in 1503, he asked the Swiss Diet to provide him with a constant corps of 200 Swiss mercenaries. This was made possible through financing by German merchants from Augsburg, Ulrich and Jacob Fugger, who had invested in the Pope and saw fit to protect their investment.


title: Swiss Guard

text: In September 1505, the first contingent of 150 soldiers set off on march to Rome, under the command of Kaspar von Silenen, and entered the city on 22 January 1506, now regarded as the official date of the Guard's foundation.


title: Swiss Guard

text: "The Swiss see the sad situation of the Church of God, Mother of Christianity, and realize how grave and dangerous it is that any tyrant, avid for wealth, can assault with impunity, the common Mother of Christianity," declared the Swiss Huldrych Zwingli, who later became a Protestant reformer. Pope Julius II later granted the Guard the title "Defenders of the Church's freedom".


title: Swiss Guard

text: The force has varied greatly in size over the years and on occasion has been disbanded and reconstituted. Its most significant hostile engagement was on 6 May 1527, when 147 of the 189 Guards, including their commander Caspar Röist, died fighting the troops of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in the stand of the Swiss Guard during the Sack of Rome in order to allow Clement VII to escape through the Passetto di Borgo, escorted by the other 42 guards. The last stand battlefield is located on the left side of St Peter's Basilica, close to the Campo Santo Teutonico (German Graveyard).


title: Swiss Guard

text: Clement VII was forced to replace the depleted Swiss Guard by a contingent of 200 German mercenaries ("Custodia Peditum Germanorum"). Ten years later, Pope Paul III ordered the Swiss Guard to be reinstated and sent Cardinal Ennio Filonardi to oversee recruitment. Anti-papal sentiment in Switzerland, however, stymied recruitment and it was not until 1548 that the papacy reached an agreement with mayor of Lucern, Nikolaus von Meggen, to swear-in 150 new Swiss Guardsmen under commander Jost von Meggen, the mayor's nephew.


title: Swiss Guard

text: After the end of the Italian Wars, the Swiss Guard ceased to be used as a military combat unit in the service of the Pope and its role became mostly that of the protection of the person of the Pope and of an Honour guard.


title: Swiss Guard

text: However, twelve members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard of Pius V served as part of the Swiss Guard of admiral Marcantonio Colonna at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The office of commander of the Papal Guard came to be a special honour in the Catholic region of the Swiss Confederacy. It became strongly associated with the leading family of Lucerne, Pfyffer von Altishofen, a family which between 1652 and 1847 provided nine out of a total of ten of the commanders (the exception being Johann Kaspar Mayr von Baldegg, also of Lucerne, served 1696–1704).


title: Swiss Guard

text: In 1798, commander Franz Alois Pfyffer von Altishofen went into exile with the deposed Pius VI. After the death of the Pope on 29 August 1799, the Swiss Guard was disbanded and only reinstated by Pius VII in 1800. In 1809, Rome was again captured by the French and the guard was again disbanded. Pius VII was exiled to Fontainebleau. The guard was reinstated in 1814, when the Pope returned from exile, under the previous commander Karl Leodegar Pfyffer von Altishofen.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The guard was disbanded yet again in 1848, when Pius IX fled to Gaeta, but was reinstated when the Pope returned to Rome the following year.


title: Swiss Guard

text: After the Piedmontese invasion of Rome, the Swiss Guard declined in the later 19th century into a purely ceremonial body with low standards. Guards on duty at the Vatican were "Swiss" only in name, mostly born in Rome to parents of Swiss descent and speaking the Roman dialect. The guards were trained solely for ceremonial parade, kept only a few obsolete rifles in store and wore civilian dress when drilling or in barracks. Administration, accommodation, discipline and organization were neglected and the unit numbered only about 90 men out of an authorized establishment of 133.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The modern Swiss Guard is the product of the reforms pursued by Jules Repond, commander during 1910–1921.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Repond proposed to recruit only native citizens of Switzerland and he introduced rigorous military exercises.


title: Swiss Guard

text: He also attempted to introduce modern arms, but Pius X only permitted the presence of firearms if they were not functional.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Repond's reforms and strict discipline were not well received by the corps, culminating in a week of open mutiny in July 1913, and the subsequent dismissal of thirteen ringleaders from the guard.


title: Swiss Guard

text: In his project to restore the Swiss Guard to its former prestige, Repond also dedicated himself to the study of historical costume, with the aim of designing a new uniform that would be both reflective of the historical Swiss costume of the 16th century and suited for military exercise.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The result of his studies was published as "Le costume de la Garde suisse pontificale et la Renaissance italienne" (1917). Repond designed the distinctive Renaissance-style uniforms still worn by the modern Swiss Guard. The introduction of the new uniforms was completed in May 1914.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The foundation of Vatican City as a modern sovereign state was negotiated in the Lateran Treaty of 1929.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The duties of protecting public order and security in the Vatican lay with the Papal Gendarmerie Corps, while the Swiss Guard, the Palatine Guard and the Noble Guard served mostly ceremonial functions.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The Palatine and Noble Guards were disbanded by Paul VI in 1970, leaving the Swiss Guard as the only ceremonial guard unit of the Vatican.


title: Swiss Guard

text: At the same time, the Gendarmerie Corps was transformed into a central security office, with the duties of protecting the Pope, defending Vatican City, and providing police and security services within its territory, while the Swiss Guard continued to serve ceremonial functions only.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Paul VI in a decree of 28 June 1976 defined the nominal size of the corps at 90 men. This was increased to 100 men by John Paul II on 5 April 1979. As of 2010 the guard numbered 107 halberdiers divided into three squads, with commissioned and non-commissioned officers.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Since the assassination attempt on John Paul II of 13 May 1981, a much stronger emphasis has been placed on the guard's non-ceremonial roles.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The Swiss Guard has developed into a modern guard corps equipped with modern small arms, and members of the Swiss Guard in plain clothes now accompany the Pope on his travels abroad for his protection.


title: Swiss Guard

text: On 4 May 1998 commander Alois Estermann was murdered on the day of his promotion. Estermann and his wife, Gladys Meza Romero, were killed by the young guardsman Cédric Tornay, who later committed suicide. The case received considerable public attention and became the subject of a number of conspiracy theories alleging Cold War politics or involvement by the Opus Dei prelature. British journalist John Follain, who published a book on the case in 2006, concluded that the killer acted purely out of personal motives.


title: Swiss Guard

text: On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Swiss Guard, in April–May 2006, 80 former guardsmen marched from Bellinzona in southern Switzerland to Rome, recalling the march of the original 200 Swiss guards to take up Papal service, in 1505. The march had been preceded by other celebrations in Lucerne, including a rally of veterans of the Guard and a Mass.


title: Swiss Guard

text: In a public ceremony on 6 May 2006, 33 new guards were sworn in on the steps of St. Peter's Basilica instead of the traditional venue in the San Damaso Courtyard. The date chosen marked the anniversary of the Sack of Rome when the Swiss Guard had been nearly destroyed. Present at this event were representatives of the Company of Pikemen and Musketeers of the Honourable Artillery Company of London and the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts.


title: Swiss Guard

text: In December 2014, Pope Francis directed that Daniel Anrig's term as commander should end on 31 January 2015, and that he be succeeded by his deputy Christoph Graf. This followed reports about Anrig's "authoritarian style".


title: Swiss Guard

text: With the rise of Islamic terrorism in Europe and open threats against the Vatican issued by the Islamic State (ISIS), Vatican officials in 2015 collaborated with Italian authorities to improve the protection of Vatican City against attacks that cannot be reasonably defended against by the Swiss Guard and Vatican gendarms, notably against drone attacks.


title: Swiss Guard

text: In October 2019 the Swiss Guard reached a total personnel of 135. It is the result of the expansion of the Corps announced at the press conference held on the occasion of the swearing in of the new guards in 2018. Previously, according to article 7 of the regulation, the Swiss Guard was made up of 110 men.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Recruits to the guards must be Catholic, single males with Swiss citizenship who have completed basic training with the Swiss Armed Forces and can obtain certificates of good conduct. Recruits must have a professional degree or high school diploma and must be between 19 and 30 years of age and at least tall. In 2009, the Pontifical Swiss Guard commandant, Daniel Anrig, suggested that the Guard might someday be open to recruiting women, but he added that the admission of female recruits remained far in the future.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Qualified candidates must apply to serve. If accepted, new guards are sworn in on 6 May every year in the San Damaso Courtyard () in the Vatican (6 May is the anniversary of the Sack of Rome). The chaplain of the guard reads aloud the oath in the languages of the guard (German, Italian, and French):


title: Swiss Guard

text: When his name is called, each new guard approaches the Pontifical Swiss Guard's flag, grasping the banner in his left hand. He raises his right hand with his thumb, index, and middle finger extended along three axes, a gesture that symbolizes the Holy Trinity and the Rütlischwur, and swears in his native tongue (which may be one of the languages of Switzerland):


title: Swiss Guard

text: "Those who are accepted serve for a minimum of two years, but can also stay in service for an additional year or two, which was the case for many guards during the "Jubilee of Mercy" in 2015.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Regular guardsmen (halberdiers) receive a tax-free salary of EUR 1,300 per month (as of 2015) plus extra pay for hours worked overtime. In addition, accommodation and board are provided. Members of the guard are eligible for pontifical decorations. The Benemerenti medal is usually awarded after three years of faithful service.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The official full dress uniform is of blue, red, orange and yellow with a distinctly Renaissance appearance. It was introduced by commandant Jules Repond (1910–1921) in 1914.


title: Swiss Guard

text: A clear expression of the modern Pontifical Swiss Guard uniform can be seen in a 1577 fresco by Jacopo Coppi of the Empress Eudoxia conversing with Pope Sixtus III. It shows the precursor of today's recognisable three-colored uniform with boot covers, white gloves, a high or ruff collar, and either a black beret or a black Comb morion (silver for high occasions). Sergeants wear a black top with crimson leggings, while other officers wear an all-crimson uniform.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The colors blue and yellow were in use from the 16th century, said to be chosen to represent the Della Rovere coat of arms of Julius II, with the color red added to represent the Medici coat of arms of Leo X.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The ordinary guardsmen and the sub-corporals wear the "tricolor" (yellow, blue and red) uniform without any rank distinctions except for a different model of halberd in gala dress. The corporals have red braid insignia on their cuffs and use a different, more spear-like, halberd.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Headwear is typically a large black beret for daily duties, while a black or silver morion helmet with red, white, yellow, black, and purple ostrich feathers is worn for ceremonial duties, the former for guard duty or drill; the latter for high ceremonial occasions such as the annual swearing-in ceremony or reception of foreign heads of state. Historically brightly colored pheasant or heron feathers were used.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The senior non-commissioned and warrant officers have a different type of uniform. All sergeants have essentially the same pattern of dress as ordinary guardsmen, but with black tunics and red breeches. Each sergeant has a red plume on his helmet, except for the sergeant major, who displays distinctive white feathers. When the gala uniform is worn, sergeants have a different pattern of armor with a gold cord across the chest.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The commissioned officers (captains, major, vice-commander and commander) are distinguished by a completely red uniform with a different style of breeches, and golden embroidery on the sleeves. They have a longer sword, which is used when commanding a group or a squadron of guards. In gala dress all ranks use a bigger purple plume on their helmets, except for the commander, who has a white one. Usually the commander and the chief of staff (usually the vice-commander) use armor when present at gala ceremonies. On such occasions "armor complete" – including sleeve armor, is worn. Except for ceremonial occasions and exercises, officers of the guard wear civilian dress when on duty.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The tailors of the Swiss Guard work inside the Vatican barracks. There the uniform for each guardsman is tailor-made individually. The total set of Renaissance style clothing weighs , and may be the heaviest and most complicated uniform in use by any standing army today. A single uniform requires 154 pieces and takes nearly 32 hours and 3 fittings to complete.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The modern regular duty service dress uniform is more functional, consisting of a simpler solid blue version of the more colorful tricolor grand gala uniform, worn with a simple brown belt, a flat white collar and a black beret. For new recruits and rifle practice, a simple light blue overall with a brown belt may be worn. During cold or inclement weather, a dark blue cape is worn over the regular uniform.


title: Swiss Guard

text: In 2019, after more than 500 years, the Swiss Guard replaced its traditional metal helmet with a new version made of PVC, with hidden air vents. The new PVC helmet requires just one day to produce, compared to several days for the metal model.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The eponymous main weapon of the "halbardiers" is the halberd; corporals and vice-corporals are equipped with a partisan polearm. Ranks above corporal do not have polearms, but on certain ceremonial occasions carry command batons.


title: Swiss Guard

text: A dress sword is carried by all ranks, swords with a simple S-shaped crossguard by the lower ranks, and elaborate basket-hilt rapiers in the early baroque style by officers.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The armory holds a collection of historical plate armor (cuirasses or half-armor). The oldest specimens date to c. 1580, while the majority originates in the 18th century. Historical armor was worn on the occasion of canonizations until 1970, since when their use has been limited to the oath ceremony on 6 May. A full set of replicas of the historical cuirasses was commissioned in 2012, from "Waffen und Harnischschmiede Schmidberger" in Molln, Upper Austria in 2012. The cuirasses are handmade, and the production of a single piece takes about 120 hours. The replicas are not financed by the Vatican itself but by private donations via the Foundation for the Swiss Guard in the Vatican, a Fribourg-based organisation established in 2000.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The Swiss Guard in their function as bodyguards are equipped with the SIG Sauer P220 pistol and the SIG SG 550 assault rifle (or its SG 552 variant) also in use by the Swiss Army.


title: Swiss Guard

text: As recruits to the Swiss Guard must have undergone basic military training in Switzerland, they are already familiar with these weapons when they begin their service. The pepper spray used by the Swiss Army (RSG-2000) is also in use.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The Glock 19 pistol and Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun are reportedly also carried by Swiss Guard members in their function as plainclothes bodyguards.


title: Swiss Guard

text: In the 19th century (prior to 1870), the Swiss Guard along with the Papal Army used firearms with special calibres such as the "12.7 mm Remington Papal". The Swiss Guard historically also used the M1842 T.59–67, 1871 Vetterli, Schmidt-Rubin, Gewehr 98, K31, and SIG SG 510 rifles, the Dreyse M1907 pistol, and the SIG MKMO, Hispano-Suiza MP43/44 and Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine guns.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The design of the banner of the Pontifical Swiss Guard banner has been changed several times. A fresco by Polidoro da Caravaggio in the burial chapel of the guard in Santa Maria della Pietà in Campo Santo Teutonico, commissioned by the second commander, Marx Röist, in 1522, depicts the commander of the guard flanked by two banners.


title: Swiss Guard

text: An early reference to the guard's banner ("vennly") dates to 1519, although the design of that banner is unknown. An early surviving banner is on display in the Sala Regia. The banner would change with each pontificate, and depict the colors of the coat of arms of the reigning pope. The modern colors of the Swiss Guard, introduced in the early 20th century, are those of the House of Medici, first used under the Medici popes and depicted in a fresco by Giuseppe Porta (1520–1575).


title: Swiss Guard

text: Under Pius IX (Mastai Ferretti, r. 1846–1878), it was divided into three horizontal fields, displaying the coat of arms of the Holy See (keys in saltire surmounted by the papal tiara on a red field), the Swiss flag (a white cross with two laurel branches on a red field) and a yellow field without heraldic charge.


title: Swiss Guard

text: On the reverse side of the banner was the papal coat of arms of Pius IX. Under Pius X (Giuseppe Melchiorre, r. 1903–1914) and commander


title: Swiss Guard

text: Leopold Meyer von Schauensee (1901–1910), the top field displayed the papal coat of arms in a blue field, in the center field was red without heraldic charge and the bottom field displayed the family coat of arms of the guard commander.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The modern banner is a square divided by a white cross into quarters (in the tradition of the banners historically used by the Swiss Guards in the 18th century). In the fourth quarter (lower right) is Pope Julius II's coat of arms; in the first quarter (upper left) that of the reigning pope. The other two quarters display the Swiss Guard's colors (red, yellow and blue, the colors of the House of Medici), and in the center of the cross is the commander's own coat of arms.


title: Swiss Guard

text: The current banner () thus shows the coat of arms of Pope Francis in the first quarter and a vignette of the family coat of arms of Christoph Graf in the center. It has dimensions of 2.2 m squared, woven in a damask pattern of pomegranates and thistles, in what is known as "Julius-damask" based on the Julius banners of 1512. The central vignette is embroidered on the backdrop of the colors of the flag of Lucerne. The guard colors in the second quarter (upper right) were reversed so that the second and third quarters are identical. The banner was completed in April 2015, and it was first used for the oath of service of new recruits on 6 May 2015.


title: Swiss Guard

text: Even though the banner is carried out during ceremonies and the "Urbi et Orbi" address and blessing twice a year, during the current pontificate of Pope Francis, only the Flag of Vatican City is used instead of the banner during ceremonial occasions as a sort of national color whenever the Pope is present.


title: Tim Robinson (comedian)

text: Tim Robinson (born May 23, 1981) is an American comedian, actor, writer and producer. He is best known for co-creating, co-writing and starring in the Comedy Central series "Detroiters" (2017–2018) and the Netflix series "I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson" (2019–present), and for his work as a writer and performer on "Saturday Night Live" (2012–2014).


title: Tim Robinson (comedian)

text: Robinson was born in Detroit on May 23, 1981, the son of a mother who worked for Chrysler and a father who worked in construction. His parents divorced, and he grew up with two fathers, one of whom was Jewish and celebrated Hanukkah with Robinson. He grew up in the nearby towns of Clarkston and Waterford, graduating from Clarkston High School in 2000. As a teenager, he saw a live Second City comedy performance in Chicago, after which he started taking weekend improv classes at Second City Detroit. After high school, he pursued a comedy career while supporting himself with odd jobs, such as working in a toy store and teaching improv classes.


title: Tim Robinson (comedian)

text: Robinson toured with Second City Detroit's touring company, then joined Second City Chicago. He has also performed at the iO Theater and Just for Laughs. He filmed a 2011 television pilot for Comedy Central called "My Mans", but the show was not picked up by the network. In 2012, he was cast as a series regular in the unaired CBS sitcom "Friend Me". In September 2012, he made his debut as a featured performer on "Saturday Night Live". A year later, it was announced that he would work on the writing staff rather than continue being a performer, making him the second "SNL" cast member (after Brian Doyle-Murray) to go from performer to staff writer and the first "SNL" performer to become a writer after originally being cast solely as a performer. His celebrity impressions on the show included Ben Bailey and Bill Cowher, and he also portrayed the reoccurring character Carl, an elderly retail worker who would always get insulted by Niff (Bobby Moynihan) and Dana (Cecily Strong).


title: Tim Robinson (comedian)

text: Robinson has appeared twice on late-night NBC talk show "Late Night with Seth Meyers" as Dale, who acts as host Seth Meyers' "emergency sidekick." His first appearance was during the "Next Week's News" sketch on February 28, 2014, and his second appearance was during the "Celebrity Drunk Texts" sketch on April 8, 2014. In 2016, he wrote and appeared in his own episode of the sketch comedy show "". He is also the co-creator and co-star of "Detroiters", along with fellow Detroit native and frequent collaborator Sam Richardson. The show premiered on Comedy Central in February 2017. In April 2017, he guest starred on Fox's "Making History" as Al Capone.


title: Tim Robinson (comedian)

text: In 2018, Netflix green-lit "I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson", a sketch comedy series created by and starring Robinson and produced by the members of The Lonely Island. It premiered in April 2019 and received critical acclaim, as did its second season, which premiered in July 2021.


title: Tim Robinson (comedian)

text: In 2022, Robinson won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Short Form Comedy or Drama Series for his work on "I Think You Should Leave".


title: Tim Robinson (comedian)

text: Robinson began dating Heather, who later became an electrical engineer for Chrysler, when the two were teenagers in high school. They were married in September 2006, and have a son and daughter together. They live in Los Angeles.


title: Acid

text: An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. hydrogen ion, H), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis acid.


title: Acid

text: The first category of acids are the proton donors, or Brønsted–Lowry acids. In the special case of aqueous solutions, proton donors form the hydronium ion HO and are known as Arrhenius acids. Brønsted and Lowry generalized the Arrhenius theory to include non-aqueous solvents. A Brønsted or Arrhenius acid usually contains a hydrogen atom bonded to a chemical structure that is still energetically favorable after loss of H.


title: Acid

text: Aqueous Arrhenius acids have characteristic properties that provide a practical description of an acid. Acids form aqueous solutions with a sour taste, can turn blue litmus red, and react with bases and certain metals (like calcium) to form salts. The word "acid" is derived from the Latin , meaning 'sour'. An aqueous solution of an acid has a pH less than 7 and is colloquially also referred to as "acid" (as in "dissolved in acid"), while the strict definition refers only to the solute. A lower pH means a higher acidity, and thus a higher concentration of positive hydrogen ions in the solution. Chemicals or substances having the property of an acid are said to be acidic.


title: Acid

text: Common aqueous acids include hydrochloric acid (a solution of hydrogen chloride that is found in gastric acid in the stomach and activates digestive enzymes), acetic acid (vinegar is a dilute aqueous solution of this liquid), sulfuric acid (used in car batteries), and citric acid (found in citrus fruits). As these examples show, acids (in the colloquial sense) can be solutions or pure substances, and can be derived from acids (in the strict sense) that are solids, liquids, or gases. Strong acids and some concentrated weak acids are corrosive, but there are exceptions such as carboranes and boric acid.


title: Acid

text: The second category of acids are Lewis acids, which form a covalent bond with an electron pair. An example is boron trifluoride (BF), whose boron atom has a vacant orbital that can form a covalent bond by sharing a lone pair of electrons on an atom in a base, for example the nitrogen atom in ammonia (NH). Lewis considered this as a generalization of the Brønsted definition, so that an acid is a chemical species that accepts electron pairs either directly "or" by releasing protons (H) into the solution, which then accept electron pairs. Hydrogen chloride, acetic acid, and most other Brønsted–Lowry acids cannot form a covalent bond with an electron pair, however, and are therefore not Lewis acids. Conversely, many Lewis acids are not Arrhenius or Brønsted–Lowry acids. In modern terminology, an "acid" is implicitly a Brønsted acid and not a Lewis acid, since chemists almost always refer to a Lewis acid explicitly as "a Lewis acid".


title: Acid

text: Most acids encountered in everyday life are aqueous solutions, or can be dissolved in water, so the Arrhenius and Brønsted–Lowry definitions are the most relevant.


title: Acid

text: The Brønsted–Lowry definition is the most widely used definition; unless otherwise specified, acid–base reactions are assumed to involve the transfer of a proton (H) from an acid to a base.


title: Acid

text: Hydronium ions are acids according to all three definitions. Although alcohols and amines can be Brønsted–Lowry acids, they can also function as Lewis bases due to the lone pairs of electrons on their oxygen and nitrogen atoms.


title: Acid

text: In 1884, Svante Arrhenius attributed the properties of acidity to hydrogen ions (H), later described as protons or hydrons. An Arrhenius acid is a substance that, when added to water, increases the concentration of H ions in the water. Note that chemists often write H("aq") and refer to the hydrogen ion when describing acid–base reactions but the free hydrogen nucleus, a proton, does not exist alone in water, it exists as the hydronium ion (HO) or other forms (HO, HO). Thus, an Arrhenius acid can also be described as a substance that increases the concentration of hydronium ions when added to water. Examples include molecular substances such as hydrogen chloride and acetic acid.


title: Acid

text: An Arrhenius base, on the other hand, is a substance that increases the concentration of hydroxide (OH) ions when dissolved in water. This decreases the concentration of hydronium because the ions react to form HO molecules:


title: Acid

text: Due to this equilibrium, any increase in the concentration of hydronium is accompanied by a decrease in the concentration of hydroxide. Thus, an Arrhenius acid could also be said to be one that decreases hydroxide concentration, while an Arrhenius base increases it.


title: Acid

text: In an acidic solution, the concentration of hydronium ions is greater than 10 moles per liter. Since pH is defined as the negative logarithm of the concentration of hydronium ions, acidic solutions thus have a pH of less than 7.


title: Acid

text: While the Arrhenius concept is useful for describing many reactions, it is also quite limited in its scope. In 1923, chemists Johannes Nicolaus Brønsted and Thomas Martin Lowry independently recognized that acid–base reactions involve the transfer of a proton. A Brønsted–Lowry acid (or simply Brønsted acid) is a species that donates a proton to a Brønsted–Lowry base. Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory has several advantages over Arrhenius theory. Consider the following reactions of acetic acid (CHCOOH), the organic acid that gives vinegar its characteristic taste:


title: Acid

text: Both theories easily describe the first reaction: CHCOOH acts as an Arrhenius acid because it acts as a source of HO when dissolved in water, and it acts as a Brønsted acid by donating a proton to water. In the second example CHCOOH undergoes the same transformation, in this case donating a proton to ammonia (NH), but does not relate to the Arrhenius definition of an acid because the reaction does not produce hydronium. Nevertheless, CHCOOH is both an Arrhenius and a Brønsted–Lowry acid.


title: Acid

text: Brønsted–Lowry theory can be used to describe reactions of molecular compounds in nonaqueous solution or the gas phase. Hydrogen chloride (HCl) and ammonia combine under several different conditions to form ammonium chloride, NHCl. In aqueous solution HCl behaves as hydrochloric acid and exists as hydronium and chloride ions. The following reactions illustrate the limitations of Arrhenius's definition:


title: Acid

text: As with the acetic acid reactions, both definitions work for the first example, where water is the solvent and hydronium ion is formed by the HCl solute. The next two reactions do not involve the formation of ions but are still proton-transfer reactions. In the second reaction hydrogen chloride and ammonia (dissolved in benzene) react to form solid ammonium chloride in a benzene solvent and in the third gaseous HCl and NH combine to form the solid.


title: Acid

text: A third, only marginally related concept was proposed in 1923 by Gilbert N. Lewis, which includes reactions with acid–base characteristics that do not involve a proton transfer. A Lewis acid is a species that accepts a pair of electrons from another species; in other words, it is an electron pair acceptor. Brønsted acid–base reactions are proton transfer reactions while Lewis acid–base reactions are electron pair transfers. Many Lewis acids are not Brønsted–Lowry acids. Contrast how the following reactions are described in terms of acid–base chemistry:


title: Acid

text: In the first reaction a fluoride ion, F, gives up an electron pair to boron trifluoride to form the product tetrafluoroborate. Fluoride "loses" a pair of valence electrons because the electrons shared in the B—F bond are located in the region of space between the two atomic nuclei and are therefore more distant from the fluoride nucleus than they are in the lone fluoride ion. BF is a Lewis acid because it accepts the electron pair from fluoride. This reaction cannot be described in terms of Brønsted theory because there is no proton transfer. The second reaction can be described using either theory. A proton is transferred from an unspecified Brønsted acid to ammonia, a Brønsted base; alternatively, ammonia acts as a Lewis base and transfers a lone pair of electrons to form a bond with a hydrogen ion. The species that gains the electron pair is the Lewis acid; for example, the oxygen atom in HO gains a pair of electrons when one of the H—O bonds is broken and the electrons shared in the bond become localized on oxygen. Depending on the context, a Lewis acid may also be described as an oxidizer or an electrophile. Organic Brønsted acids, such as acetic, citric, or oxalic acid, are not Lewis acids. They dissociate in water to produce a Lewis acid, H, but at the same time also yield an equal amount of a Lewis base (acetate, citrate, or oxalate, respectively, for the acids mentioned). This article deals mostly with Brønsted acids rather than Lewis acids.


title: Acid

text: Reactions of acids are often generalized in the form , where HA represents the acid and A is the conjugate base. This reaction is referred to as protolysis. The protonated form (HA) of an acid is also sometimes referred to as the free acid.


title: Acid

text: Acid–base conjugate pairs differ by one proton, and can be interconverted by the addition or removal of a proton (protonation and deprotonation, respectively). Note that the acid can be the charged species and the conjugate base can be neutral in which case the generalized reaction scheme could be written as . In solution there exists an equilibrium between the acid and its conjugate base. The equilibrium constant "K" is an expression of the equilibrium concentrations of the molecules or the ions in solution. Brackets indicate concentration, such that [HO] means "the concentration of HO". The acid dissociation constant "K" is generally used in the context of acid–base reactions. The numerical value of "K" is equal to the product (multiplication) of the concentrations of the products divided by the concentration of the reactants, where the reactant is the acid (HA) and the products are the conjugate base and H.


title: Acid

text: The stronger of two acids will have a higher "K" than the weaker acid; the ratio of hydrogen ions to acid will be higher for the stronger acid as the stronger acid has a greater tendency to lose its proton. Because the range of possible values for "K" spans many orders of magnitude, a more manageable constant, p"K" is more frequently used, where p"K" = −log "K". Stronger acids have a smaller p"K" than weaker acids. Experimentally determined p"K" at 25 °C in aqueous solution are often quoted in textbooks and reference material.


title: Acid

text: Arrhenius acids are named according to their anions. In the classical naming system, the ionic suffix is dropped and replaced with a new suffix, according to the table following. The prefix "hydro-" is used when the acid is made up of just hydrogen and one other element. For example, HCl has chloride as its anion, so the hydro- prefix is used, and the -ide suffix makes the name take the form hydrochloric acid.


title: Acid

text: In the IUPAC naming system, "aqueous" is simply added to the name of the ionic compound. Thus, for hydrogen chloride, as an acid solution, the IUPAC name is aqueous hydrogen chloride.


title: Acid

text: The strength of an acid refers to its ability or tendency to lose a proton. A strong acid is one that completely dissociates in water; in other words, one mole of a strong acid HA dissolves in water yielding one mole of H and one mole of the conjugate base, A, and none of the protonated acid HA. In contrast, a weak acid only partially dissociates and at equilibrium both the acid and the conjugate base are in solution. Examples of strong acids are hydrochloric acid (HCl), hydroiodic acid (HI), hydrobromic acid (HBr), perchloric acid (HClO), nitric acid (HNO) and sulfuric acid (HSO). In water each of these essentially ionizes 100%. The stronger an acid is, the more easily it loses a proton, H. Two key factors that contribute to the ease of deprotonation are the polarity of the H—A bond and the size of atom A, which determines the strength of the H—A bond. Acid strengths are also often discussed in terms of the stability of the conjugate base.


title: Acid

text: Stronger acids have a larger acid dissociation constant, "K" and a more negative p"K" than weaker acids.


title: Acid

text: Sulfonic acids, which are organic oxyacids, are a class of strong acids. A common example is toluenesulfonic acid (tosylic acid). Unlike sulfuric acid itself, sulfonic acids can be solids. In fact, polystyrene functionalized into polystyrene sulfonate is a solid strongly acidic plastic that is filterable.


title: Acid

text: Superacids are acids stronger than 100% sulfuric acid. Examples of superacids are fluoroantimonic acid, magic acid and perchloric acid. Superacids can permanently protonate water to give ionic, crystalline hydronium "salts". They can also quantitatively stabilize carbocations.


title: Acid

text: While "K" measures the strength of an acid compound, the strength of an aqueous acid solution is measured by pH, which is an indication of the concentration of hydronium in the solution. The pH of a simple solution of an acid compound in water is determined by the dilution of the compound and the compound's "K".


title: Acid

text: Lewis acids have been classified in the ECW model and it has been shown that there is no one order of acid strengths. The relative acceptor strength of Lewis acids toward a series of bases, versus other Lewis acids, can be illustrated by C-B plots. It has been shown that to define the order of Lewis acid strength at least two properties must be considered. For Pearson's qualitative HSAB theory the two properties are hardness and strength while for Drago's quantitative ECW model the two properties are electrostatic and covalent.


title: Acid

text: Monoprotic acids, also known as monobasic acids, are those acids that are able to donate one proton per molecule during the process of dissociation (sometimes called ionization) as shown below (symbolized by HA):