Between 1833 and 1837, the publishers of a "penny press" proved that a low-priced paper, edited to interest ordinary people, could win what amounted to a mass circulation for the times and thereby attract an advertising volume that would make it independent. These were papers for the common citizen and were not tied to the interests of the business community, like the mercantile press, or dependent for financial support upon political party allegiance. It did not necessarily follow that all the penny papers would be superior in their handling of the news and opinion functions. But the door was open for some to make important journalistic advances. The first offerings of a penny paper tended to ’be highly sensational; human interest stories overshadowed important news, and crime and sex stories were written in full detail. But as the penny paper attracted readers from various social and economic brackets, its sensationalism was modified. The ordinary reader came to want a better product, too. popularized style of writing and presentation of news remained, but the penny paper became a respectable publication that offered significant information and editorial leadership. Once the first of the successful penny papers had shown the way, later ventures could enter the competition at the higher level of journalistic responsibility the pioneering paper, had reached. This was the pattern of American newspapers in the years following the founding of the New York Sun in 1833. The Sun, published by Benjamin Day, entered the lists against 11 other dailies. It was tiny in comparison; but it was bright and readable, and it preferred human interest features to important but dull political speech reports. It had a police reporter writing squibs of crime news in the style already proved successful by some other papers. And, most important, it sold for a penny, whereas its competitors sold for sir cents. By 1837 the Sun was printing 30,000 copies a day, which was more than the total of all 11 New York daily newspapers combined when the Sun first appeared. In those same four years James Gordon Bennett brought out his New York Herald (1835), and a trio of New York printers who were imitating Day’s success founded the Philadelphia Public Ledger (1836) and the Baltimore Sun (1837). The four penny sheets all became famed newspapers. This passage is probably taken from a book on ______.

A. the work ethics of the American media
B. the technique in news reporting
C. the history of sensationalism in American media
D. the impact of mass media on American society