The
history of journalism, or the development of the gathering and transmitting of
news,
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."
Journalism and the printing press
The invention of the
movable type printing press by
Johannes Gutenberg in 1456, led to the wide dissemination of printed books. The first printed periodical was
Mercurius Gallobelgicus; written in Latin, it appeared in 1594 in
Cologne, and was distributed widely, even finding its way to readers in England.
England
In England the first newsbook, the
Continuation of Our Weekly News, was published regularly in London after 1623; it appeared in 8- to 24-page quarto formats. The first newspaper was the
Oxford Gazette (later the
London Gazette,
and published continually ever since), which first appeared in 1665. It
began publication while the British royal court was in Oxford to avoid
the plague in London, and was published twice a week. When the court
moved back to London, the publication moved with it. The first daily
newspaper, the
Daily Courant,
appeared in 1702 and continued publication for more than 30 years. Its
first editor was also the first woman in journalism, although she was
replaced after only a couple of weeks. By this time, the English had
adopted the Press Restriction Act, which required that the printer's
name and place of publication be included on each printed document.
France
The first newspaper in France, the
Gazette de France, was established in 1632 by the king's physician Theophrastus Renaudot (1586-1653), with the patronage of Louis XIII.
[1] All newspapers were subject to prepublication censorship, and served as instruments of propaganda for the monarchy.
Jean Loret
is considered to be one of France's first journalists. He disseminated
the weekly news of Parisian society from 1650 until 1665 in verse, in
what he called a
gazette burlesque, assembled in three volumes of
La Muse historique (1650, 1660, 1665).
Journalism in America
The first real colonial newspaper was the
New England Courant, published as a sideline by printer James Franklin, brother of
Benjamin Franklin.
Like many other Colonial newspapers, it was aligned with party
interests and did not publish balanced content. Ben Franklin was first
published in his brother's newspaper, under the pseudonym Silence
Dogood, in 1722, and even his brother did not know. Ben Franklin's
pseudonymous publishing represented a common practice of newspapers of
that time of protecting writers from retribution from those they
criticized, often to the point of what would be considered
libel today.
Ben Franklin moved to
Philadelphia in 1728 and took over the
Pennsylvania Gazette
the following year. Ben Franklin expanded his business by essentially
franchising other printers in other cities, who published their own
newspapers. By 1750, 14 weekly newspapers were published in the six
largest colonies. The largest and most successful of these could be
published up to three times per week.
American Independence
By the 1770s, 89 newspapers were published in 35 cities. Most papers
at the time of the American Revolution were anti-royalist, chiefly
because of opposition to the Stamp Act taxing newsprint. Colonial
governments could suppress newspapers by denying the stamp or refusing
to sell approved paper to the offending publisher.
Newspapers flourished in the new republic — by 1800, there were about
234 being published — and tended to be very partisan about the form of
the new federal government, which was shaped by successive
Federalist or
Republican presidencies. Newspapers directed much abuse toward various politicians, and the eventual duel between
Alexander Hamilton and
Aaron Burr was fueled by controversy in newspaper pages.
As the 19th century progressed in America, newspapers began
functioning more as private businesses with real editors rather than
partisan organs, though standards for truth and responsibility were
still low. Other than local news, much of the content was copied from
other newspapers. In addition to news stories, there might be poetry or
fiction, or (especially late in the century) humorous columns."
Rise of prominent newspapers in the U.S.
As American cities like New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington
grew with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, so did newspapers.
Larger printing presses, the telegraph, and other technological
innovations allowed newspapers to print thousands of copies, boost
circulation, and increase revenue.
The first newspaper to fit the modern definition of a newspaper was the
New York Herald, founded in 1835 and published by
James Gordon Bennett, Sr.. It was the first newspaper to have city staff covering regular
beats and
spot news,
along with regular business and Wall Street coverage. In 1838 Bennett
also organized the first foreign correspondent staff of six men in
Europe and assigned domestic correspondents to key cities, including the
first reporter to regularly cover Congress.
Not to be outdone was the
New York Tribune, which began publishing in 1841 and was edited by
Horace Greeley.
It was the first newspaper to gain national prominence; by 1861, it
shipped thousands of copies daily to other large cities, including 6,000
to
Chicago,
while other Eastern newspapers published weekly editions for shipment
to other cities. Greeley also organized a professional news staff and
embarked on frequent publishing crusades for causes he believed in. The
Tribune was the first newspaper, in 1886, to use the
linotype machine, invented by
Ottmar Mergenthaler, which "rapidly increased the speed and accuracy with which type could be set."
The New York Times,
now one of the most well-known newspapers in the world, was founded in
1851 by George Jones and Henry Raymond. It established the principle of
balanced reporting in high-quality writing. At the time, it did not
achieve the circulation and success it now enjoys.
[2]
Growth of newspapers outside eastern U.S. cities
The influence of these large newspapers in New York and other Eastern
cities slowly spread to smaller cities and towns, Weekly newspapers
gave way to dailies, and competition between newspapers even in small
towns became fierce.
In the Midwest and beyond, there was a boom for local newspapers,
which remained more focused on local news and services than the larger
urban newspapers. Many newspapers flourished during the conquest of the
West, as homesteaders were required to publish notices of their land
claims in local newspapers. Many of these papers died out after the
land rushes ended.
The rise of the wire services
The
American Civil War
had a profound effect on American journalism. Large newspapers hired
war correspondents to cover the battlefields, with more freedom than
correspondents today enjoy. These reporters used the new telegraph and
expanding railways to move news reports faster to their newspapers. The
cost of sending telegraphs helped create a new concise or "tight" style
of writing which became the standard for journalism through the next
century.
The ever-growing demand for urban newspapers to provide more news led
to the organization of the first of the wire services, a cooperative
between six large New York City-based newspapers led by
David Hale, the publisher of the
Journal of Commerce, and James Gordon Bennett, to provide coverage of Europe for all of the papers together. What became the
Associated Press received the first cable transmission ever of European news through the trans-Atlantic cable in 1858.
New forms of journalism
The New York dailies continued to redefine journalism. James Bennett's
Herald, for example, didn't just write about the disappearance of
David Livingstone in Africa; they sent
Henry Stanley to find him, which he did, in
Uganda.
The success of Stanley's stories prompted Bennett to hire more of what
would turn out to be investigative journalists. He also was the first
American publisher to bring an American newspaper to Europe by founding
the
Paris Herald, which was the precursor of the
International Herald Tribune.
Charles Anderson Dana of the
New York Sun developed the idea of the
human interest story and a better definition of news value, including uniqueness of a story.
Era of Hearst and Pulitzer
William Randolph Hearst and
Joseph Pulitzer both owned newspaper chains in the American West, and both established papers in New York City: Hearst's
New York Journal in 1883 and Pulitzer's
New York World
in 1896. Their stated missions to defend the public interest, their
circulation wars and their embrace of sensational reporting, which
spread to many other newspapers, led to the coinage of the phrase "
yellow journalism."
While the public may have benefitted from the beginnings of
"muckraking" journalism, their often excessive coverage of juicy stories
with sensational reporting turned many readers against them.
Muckraking journalism continued into the 20th century, led by well-known investigative journalists
Lincoln Steffens,
Ida Tarbell and
Upton Sinclair. Their work exposed the dismal conditions of the Chicago slums and meatpacking industry, the monopolistic practices of the
Standard Oil Co. and more.
Muckraking publications
Smaller newspapers and magazines engaged in more investigative
reporting than the larger dailies, and took greater risks. This gave
rise, over time, to an alternative press movement, which today is
typified by alternative weekly newspapers like
The Village Voice in New York City and
The Phoenix in Boston, as well as political magazines like
Mother Jones and
The Nation.
Rise of the African-American press
The rampant and flagrant segregation of and discrimination against
African-Americans did not prevent them from founding their own daily and
weekly newspapers, especially in urban areas. These newspapers and
other publications flourished because of the loyalty their readers had
to them. The first black newspaper was called
Freedom's Journal, and it was first published on March 16, 1827 by John B. Russworn and Samuel Cornish.
Foreign-language newspapers
As immigration rose dramatically during the last half of the 19th
century, many immigrants published newspapers in their native languages
to cater to their fellow expatriates. One good example is the large
number of newspapers published in
Yiddish for the thousands of Jews who left Eastern Europe.
Birth of broadcasting in the 20th century
Guglielmo Marconi
and colleagues in 1901 used a wireless radio transmitter to send a
signal from the United States to Europe. By 1907, his invention was in
wide use for transatlantic communications.
Impact of the internet
The rapidly growing impact of the Internet, especially after 2000,
brought "free" news and classified advertising to audiences that no
longer cared for paid subscriptions. The Internet undercut the business
model of many daily newspapers. Bankruptcy loomed across the U.S. and
did hit such major papers as the
Rocky Mountain news (Denver), the
Chicago Tribune and the
Los Angeles Times,
among many others. Chapman and Nuttall find that proposed solutions,
such as multiplatforms, paywalls, PR-dominated news gathering, and
shrinking staffs have not resolved the challenge. The result, they
argue, is that journalism today is characterized by four themes:
personalization, globalization, localization, and pauperization.
[3]
Source :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_journalism
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