Assault in the Seattle Star, 1900 & 1920

In The Seattle Star, unique rhetorical choices were made in all 40 articles including the word count, headline choices, and terms used to describe offenders. The longest article out of the 40 was 283 words and the shortest was a mere 17. The average length of an assault article was around 100 words in 1900, while the average in 1920 was 140. The average length of assault articles increased by 40 words over the twenty years, however, it should be noted that the page count of The Seattle Star quintuples over this same period.

Thirty-five percent of assault cases (14) made the first page, while the rest were dispersed over pages 2-3 in 1900 and pages 2-19 in 1920. The majority of headlines (29) were in all capital letters to catch the reader’s attention, reflecting The Seattle Star's editorial focus on assault as a serious crime. In these headlines, moralizing words such as “vicious,” “thugs,” and “inhuman” were used to describe the offenders of assault.