Early and basic journalism
Europe
In 1556, the government of Venice first published the monthly Notizie scritte ("Written notices") which cost one gazetta, 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
hand written 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 gazettes
appeared in German cities, notably the weekly Relation aller Fuernemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien ("Collection of all distinguished and memorable news") in Strasbourg starting 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 in an 8- to 24-page quarto format.
Revolutionary changes in the 19th century
Newspapers
in all major countries became much more important in the 19th century
because of a series of technical, business, political, and cultural
changes. High-speed presses and cheap wood-based newsprint made large
circulations possible. The rapid expansion of elementary education meant
a vast increase in the number of potential readers. Political parties
sponsored newspapers at the local and national level. Toward the end of
the century, advertising became well-established and became the main
source of revenue for newspaper owners. This led to a race to obtain the
largest possible circulation, often followed by downplaying
partisanship so that members of all parties would buy a paper. The
number of newspapers in Europe the 1860s and 1870s was steady at about
6,000; then it doubled to 12,000 in 1900. In the 1860s and 1870s, most
newspapers were four pages of editorials, reprinted speeches, excerpts
from novels and poetry and a few small local ads. They were expensive,
and most readers went to a café to look over the latest issue. There
were major national papers in each capital city, such as the London Times, the London Post, the Paris Temps
and so on. They were expensive and directed to the National political
elite. Every decade the presses became faster, and the invention of
automatic typesetting in the 1880s made feasible the overnight printing
of a large morning newspaper. Cheap wood pulp replaced became the much
expensive rag paper. A major cultural innovation, was the
professionalization of news gathering, handled by specialist reporters.
Liberalism led to freedom of the press, and ended newspaper taxes, along
with a sharp reduction to government censorship. Entrepreneurs
interested in profit increasingly replaced politicians interested in
shaping party positions, so there was dramatic outreach to a larger
subscription base. The price fell to a penny. In New York, "Yellow Journalism"
used sensationalism, comics (they were colored yellow), a strong
emphasis on team sports, reduced coverage of political details and
speeches, a new emphasis on crime, and a vastly expanded advertising
section featuring especially major department stores. Women had
previously been ignored, but now they were given multiple advice columns
on family and household and fashion issues, and the advertising was
increasingly pitched to them.
France
1632 to 1815
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. All newspapers were subject to prepublication censorship, and served as instruments of propaganda for the monarchy.
La Gazette, 26 December 1786
Under the ancien regime, the most prominent magazines were Mercure de France, Journal des sçavans, founded in 1665 for scientists, and Gazette de France, founded in 1631. Jean Loret
was one of France's first journalists. He disseminated the weekly news
of music, dance and 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). The French press lagged a generation behind the
British, for they catered to the needs the aristocracy, while the newer
British counterparts were oriented toward the middle and working
classes.
Periodicals were censored by the central government in Paris.
They were not totally quiescent politically—often they criticized Church
abuses and bureaucratic ineptitude. They supported the monarchy and
they played at most a small role in stimulating the revolution. During the Revolution new periodicals played central roles as propaganda organs for various factions. Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793) was the most prominent editor. His L'Ami du peuple
advocated vigorously for the rights of the lower classes against the
enemies of the people Marat hated; it closed when he was assassinated.
After 1800 Napoleon reimposed strict censorship.
1815 to 1914
Magazines
flourished after Napoleon left in 1815. Most were based in Paris and
most emphasized literature, poetry and stories. They served religious,
cultural and political communities. In times of political crisis they
expressed and helped shape the views of their readership and thereby
were major elements in the changing political culture.
For example, there were eight Catholic periodicals in 1830 in Paris.
None were officially owned or sponsored by the Church and they reflected
a range of opinion among educated Catholics about current issues, such
as the 1830 July Revolution that overthrew the Bourbon monarchy. Several
were strong supporters of the Bourbon kings, but all eight ultimately
urged support for the new government, putting their appeals in terms of
preserving civil order. They often discussed the relationship between
church and state. Generally they urged priests to focus on spiritual
matters and not engage in politics. Historian M. Patricia Dougherty says
this process created a distance between the Church and the new monarch
and enabled Catholics to develop a new understanding of church-state
relationships and the source of political authority.
20th century
The
press was handicapped during the war by shortages of news, newsprint an
young journalists, and by an abundance of censorship designed to
maintain home front morale by minimizing bad war news. The Parisian
newspapers were largely stagnant after the war; circulation inched up to
6 million a day from 5 million in 1910. The major postwar success
story was Paris Soir;
which lacked any political agenda and was dedicated to providing a mix
of sensational reporting to aid circulation, and serious articles to
build prestige. By 1939 its circulation was over 1.7 million, double
that of its nearest rival the tabloid Le Petit Parisien. In addition to its daily paper Paris Soir sponsored a highly successful women's magazine Marie-Claire. Another magazine Match was modeled after the photojournalism of the American magazine Life.
John Gunther wrote in 1940 that of the more than 100 daily newspapers in Paris, two (L'Humanité and Action Française's publication) were honest; "Most of the others, from top to bottom, have news columns for sale". He reported that Bec et Ongles was simultaneously subsidized by the French government, German government, and Alexandre Stavisky, and that Italy allegedly paid 65 million francs to French newspapers in 1935.
France was a democratic society in the 1930s, but the people were kept
in the dark about critical issues of foreign policy. The government
tightly controlled all of the media to promulgate propaganda to support
the government's foreign policy of appeasement
to the aggression of Italy and especially Nazi Germany. There were 253
daily newspapers, all owned separately. The five major national papers
based in Paris were all under the control of special interests,
especially right-wing political and business interests that supported
appeasement. They were all venal, taking large secret subsidies to
promote the policies of various special interests. Many leading
journalists were secretly on the government payroll. The regional and
local newspapers were heavily dependent on government advertising and
published news and editorials to suit Paris. Most of the international
news was distributed through the Havas agency, which was largely controlled by the government.
Britain
20th century
By
1900 popular journalism in Britain aimed at the largest possible
audience, including the working class, had proven a success and made its
profits through advertising. Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe
(1865–1922), "More than anyone... shaped the modern press.
Developments he introduced or harnessed remain central: broad contents,
exploitation of advertising revenue to subsidize prices, aggressive
marketing, subordinate regional markets, independence from party
control. His Daily Mail held the world record for daily circulation until his death. Prime Minister Lord Salisbury quipped it was "written by office boys for office boys".
Socialist and labour newspapers also proliferated and in 1912 the Daily Herald was launched as the first daily newspaper of the trade union and labor movement.
Newspapers reached their peak of importance during the First
World War, in part because wartime issues were so urgent and newsworthy,
while members of Parliament were constrained by the all-party coalition
government from attacking the government. By 1914 Northcliffe
controlled 40 per cent of the morning newspaper circulation in Britain,
45 per cent of the evening and 15 per cent of the Sunday circulation. He eagerly tried to turn it into political power, especially in attacking the government in the Shell Crisis of 1915. Lord Beaverbrook said he was, "the greatest figure who ever strode down Fleet Street." A.J.P. Taylor,
however, says, "Northcliffe could destroy when he used the news
properly. He could not step into the vacant place. He aspired to power
instead of influence, and as a result forfeited both."
Other powerful editors included C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian, James Louis Garvin of The Observer and Henry William Massingham of the highly influential weekly magazine of opinion, The Nation.
Denmark
Danish news media first appeared in the 1540s, when handwritten fly sheets reported on the news. In 1666, Anders Bording,
the father of Danish journalism, began a state paper. The royal
privilege to bring out a newspaper was issued to Joachim Wielandt in
1720. University officials handled the censorship, but in 1770 Denmark
became one of the first nations of the world to provide for press
freedom; it ended in 1799. The press in 1795–1814, led by intellectuals
and civil servants, called out for a more just and modern society, and
spoke out for the oppressed tenant farmers against the power of the old
aristocracy.
In 1834, the first liberal newspaper appeared, one that gave much
more emphasis to actual news content rather than opinions. The
newspapers championed the Revolution of 1848 in Denmark. The new
constitution of 1849 liberated the Danish press. Newspapers flourished
in the second half of the 19th century, usually tied to one or another
political party or labor union. Modernization, bringing in new features
and mechanical techniques, appeared after 1900. The total circulation
was 500,000 daily in 1901, more than doubling to 1.2 million in 1925.
The German occupation brought informal censorship; some offending
newspaper buildings were simply blown up by the Nazis. During the war,
the underground produced 550 newspapers—small, surreptitiously printed
sheets that encouraged sabotage and resistance.
The appearance of a dozen editorial cartoons ridiculing Mohammed
set off Muslim outrage and violent threats around the world. The Muslim community decided the caricatures in the Copenhagen newspaper Jyllands-Posten
in September 2005 represented another instance of Western animosity
toward Islam, and were so sacriligious that the perpetrators deserved
severe punishment.
The historiography of the Danish press is rich with scholarly
studies. Historians have made insights into Danish political, social and
cultural history, finding that individual newspapers are valid
analytical entities, which can be studied in terms of source, content,
audience, media, and effect.
Asia
China
Journalism in China before 1910 primarily served the international
community. The main national newspapers in Chinese were published by
Protestant missionary societies in order to reach the literati. Hard
news was not their specialty, but they did train the first generation of
Chinese journalists in Western standards of news gathering. editorials,
and advertising.
Demands for reform and revolution was impossible for papers based
inside China. Instead they appeared in polemical papers based in Japan,
such as those edited by Liang Qichao (1873-1929).
The overthrow of the old imperial regime in 1911 produced a surge
in Chinese nationalism, an end to censorship, and a demand for
professional, nation-wide journalism.
All the major cities launched such efforts. Special attention was
paid to China's role in the World War. to the disappointing Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and to the aggressive demands and actions of Japan against Chinese interests.
Journalists created professional organizations, and aspired to
separate news from commentary. At the Press Congress of the World
conference in Honolulu in 1921, the Chinese delegates were among the
most Westernized and self-consciously professional journalists from the
developing world. By the late 1920s, however, there was a much greater
emphasis on advertising and expanding circulation, and much less
interest in the sort of advocacy journalism that had inspired the
revolutionaries.
India
The first newspaper in India was circulated in 1780 under the editorship of James Augustus Hicky, named Hicky's Bengal Gazette. On May 30, 1826 Udant Martand (The Rising Sun), the first Hindi-language newspaper published in India, started from Calcutta (now Kolkata), published every Tuesday by Pt. Jugal Kishore Shukla. Maulawi Muhammad Baqir in 1836 founded the first Urdu-language newspaper the Delhi Urdu Akhbar.
India's press in the 1840s was a motley collection of
small-circulation daily or weekly sheets printed on rickety presses. Few
extended beyond their small communities and seldom tried to unite the
many castes, tribes, and regional subcultures of India. The Anglo-Indian
papers promoted purely British interests. Englishman Robert Knight
(1825–1890) founded two important English-language newspapers that
reached a broad Indian audience, The Times of India and The Statesman.
They promoted nationalism in India, as Knight introduced the people to
the power of the press and made them familiar with political issues and
the political process.
Latin America and the Caribbean
British
influence extended globally through its colonies and its informal
business relationships with merchants in major cities. They needed
up-to-date market and political information. The Diario de Pernambuco was founded in Recife, Brazil, in 1825. El Mercurio was founded in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1827. The most influential newspaper in Peru, El Comercio, first appeared in 1839. The Jornal do Commercio was established in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1827. Much later Argentina founded its newspapers in Buenos Aires: La Prensa in 1869 and La Nacion in 1870.
In Jamaica, there were a number of newspapers that represented
the views of the white planters who owned slaves. These newspapers
included titles such as the Royal Gazette, The Diary and Kingston Daily Advertiser, Cornwall Chronicle, Cornwall Gazette, and Jamaica Courant. In 1826, two free coloureds, Edward Jordan and Robert Osborn, founded The Watchman,
which openly campaigned for the rights of free coloureds, and became
Jamaica's first anti-slavery newspaper. In 1830, the criticism of the
slave-owning hierarchy was too much, and the Jamaican colonial
authorities arrested Jordan, the editor, and charged him with
constructive treason. However, Jordan was eventually acquitted, and he
eventually became Mayor of Kingston in post-Emancipation Jamaica.
On the abolition of slavery in the 1830s, Gleaner Company was founded by two Jamaican Jewish brothers, Joshua and Jacob De Cordova, budding businessmen who represented the new class of light-skinned Jamaicans taking over post-Emancipation Jamaica. While the Gleaner
represented the new establishment for the next century, there was a
growing black, nationalist movement that campaigned for increased
political representation and rights in the early twentieth century. To
this end, Osmond Theodore Fairclough founded Public Opinion in
1937. O.T. Fairclough was supported by radical journalists Frank Hill
and H.P. Jacobs, and the first editorial of this new newspaper tried to
galvanise public opinion around a new nationalism. Strongly aligned to
the People's National Party (PNP), Public Opinion counted among its journalists progressive figures such as Roger Mais, Una Marson, Amy Bailey, Louis Marriott, Peter Abrahams, and future prime minister Michael Manley, among others.
While Public Opinion campaigned for self-government, British prime minister Winston Churchill
made it known he had no intention of presiding "over the liquidation of
the British Empire", and consequently the Jamaican nationalists in the
PNP were disappointed with the watered-down constitution that was handed
down to Jamaica in 1944. Mais wrote an article saying "Now we know why
the draft of the new constitution has not been published before,"
because the underlings of Churchill were "all over the British Empire
implementing the real imperial policy implicit in the statement by the
Prime Minister". The British colonial police raided the offices of Public Opinion, seized Mais's manuscript, arrested Mais himself, and convicted him of seditious libel, jailing him for six months.
Radio and television
The history of radio broadcasting begins in the 1920s, and reached
its apogee in the 1930s and 1940s. Experimental television was being
studied before the 2nd world war, became operational in the late 1940s,
and became widespread in the 1950s and 1960s, largely but not entirely
displacing radio.
Internet journalism
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.
Historiography
Journalism historian David Nord has argued that in the 1960s and 1970s:
- In journalism history and media history, a new generation of scholars ... criticized traditional histories of the media for being too insular, too decontextualized, too uncritical, too captive to the needs of professional training, and too enamored of the biographies of men and media organizations.
In 1974, James W. Carey identified the 'Problem of Journalism History'. The field was dominated by a Whig interpretation of journalism history.
- This views journalism history as the slow, steady expansion of freedom and knowledge from the political press to the commercial press, the setbacks into sensationalism and yellow journalism, the forward thrust into muck raking and social responsibility....the entire story is framed by those large impersonal forces buffeting the press: industrialization, urbanization and mass democracy.
O'Malley says the criticism went too far, because there was much of value in the deep scholarship of the earlier period.
