History of Journalism

The history of journalism spans the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialized techniques for gathering and disseminating information on a regular basis that has caused, as one history of journalism surmises, the steady increase of “the scope of news available to us and the speed with which it is transmitted”. Before the printing press was invented, word of mouth was the primary source of news. Returning merchants, sailors, travelers brought news back to the mainland, and this was then picked up by pedlars and traveling players and spread from town to town. Ancient scribes often wrote this information down. This transmission of news was highly unreliable and died out with the invention of the printing press. Newspapers (and to a lesser extent, magazines) have always been the primary medium of ”ourn’lists since the 18th century, radio and television in the 20th century, and the Internet in the 21st century

Early and basic journalism

In 1556, the government of Venice first published the monthly Notizie scritte (“Written notices”) which cost one gazzetta,a Venetian coin of the time, the name of which eventually came to mean “newspaper”. These avvisi were handwritten newsletters and used to convey political, military, and economic news quickly and efficiently throughout Europe, more specifically Italy, during the early modern era (1500–1800)—sharing some characteristics of newspapers, though usually not considered true newspapers.

However, none of these publications fully met the modern criteria for proper newspapers, as they were typically not intended for the general public and restricted to a certain range of topics.

Early publications played into the development of what would today be recognized as the newspaper, which came about around 1601. Around the 15th and 16th centuries, in England and France, long news accounts called “relations” were published; in Spain, they were called “Relaciones”. Single-event news publications were printed in the broadsheet format, which was often posted. These publications also appeared as pamphlets and small booklets (for longer narratives, often written in a letter format), often containing woodcut illustrations. Literacy rates were low in comparison to today, and these news publications were often read aloud (literacy and oral culture were, in a sense, existing side by side in this scenario).

By 1400, businessmen in Italian and German cities were compiling handwritten chronicles of important news events, and circulating them to their business connections. The idea of using a printing press for this material first appeared in Germany around 1600.

The first true newspaper was the weekly Relation aller Fuernemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (“Collection of all distinguished and memorable news”), started in Strasbourg in 1605. The Avisa Relation oder Zeitung was published in Wolfenbüttel from 1609, and gazettes soon were established in Frankfurt (1615), Berlin (1617) and Hamburg (1618). By 1650, 30 German cities had active gazettes. A semi-yearly news chronicle, in Latin, the Mercurius Gallobelgicus, was published at Cologne between 1594 and 1635, but it was not the model for other publications.

The news circulated between newsletters through well-established channels in 17th-century Europe. Antwerp was the hub of two networks, one linking France, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands; the other linking Italy, Spain and Portugal. Favorite topics included wars, military affairs, diplomacy, and court business and gossip.

After 1600 the national governments in France and England began printing official newsletters. In 1622 the first English-language weekly magazine, “A current of General News”, was published and distributed in England an 8- to 24-page quarto format.