Introduction Newspapers have been used in different parts of the world as one effective means of communication that is widely used. The newspaper press has been in effect as early as the 17 th century, with civilizations using it to pass information to the mass population. The first English newspaper was first published in England in 1622 and for the following decades, small sheets and pamphlets became the main source of passing printed information to different parts of England and America. The first newspaper to be published in America was known as Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic and was mainly focused on business issues. The early newspapers later developed into concrete publications that became available on a more regular basis in different parts of the countries (Curran, 2003). According to Routledge (2008), the American newspaper press grew significantly over the next century, and they changed their focus from business matters to the day to day political issues. The growth in the newspaper press had become significant by the end of the 19 th century with the publications gaining great publicity and the advancement in technology making them more reliable and better. The New York Sun was one paper that had gained widespread readership in different parts of New York by the late 18 th century and the beginning of the 19 th century. The development of more effective and quick printing methods resulted in the rise of the use of newspapers all over the world and the newspaper press was at all times prepared to capture any events that were taking place which were of interest to the readers. By the beginning of the 20 th century, the press had become well versed with the appropriate ways of capturing news and putting it on print. This study focuses on the factors that led to the rise of the newspaper press and in turn caused its climax in the early 20 th century (Routedge, 2008). Reasons why the newspaper press was at its apogee in the first half of the 20th century The beginning of the 20 th century was not just significant for the print media, but also for the changes that were taking place in the society at large. The major forces that drove the press to its apogee in the first part of the 20 th century were industrial revolution and urbanization. Technological development, which had been improving since the 1880s, had its major impact in the newspaper press rooms in most of the countries. The tedious and time-consuming process of typesetting manually was replaced by a more advanced typesetting machine that enabled its user to type entire lines from a keyboard (Engel, 1996). Engel (1996) also notes that, an engraving method of converting drawings into etchings also led to widespread use of pictures in the newspapers which would be used to pass information more clearly. The process publication was also made faster and this resulted to more people having access to the papers at reduced prices. Thus, by mid 20 th century, the high rate of technological achievements had given the newspaper press a productive capacity as well as great power over the lives of its readers. Printing methods continued to improve as the technology improved in