The good old reliable news paper. It is a standard news delivering tool to which all others are compared. A news paper is a printed pulication that reports the news and interprets it. It is printed and even delivered to homes and businesses on a regular basis which can either daily or weekly.
 |
News papers actually date back to ancient Rome where a bulletin would be posted in public places for all citizens to read. This daily bulletin which would cease to exist after Rome had fallen. Other than word of mouth usually through ballad singers and official town criers as they were called, the next known news bulletin wasn't until the 16th century. The Venetians posted a news paper bulletin called the Gazetta. It contained standard news just as the Roman version did. These were followed in history by news sheets in Germany and the Netherlands in the 17th century. The first daily newspaper was the Daily Courant which was an English paper that began it publication in 1702.
|
North America saw its first printing presses arrive in Cambridge Massachusetts in about 1638 and also in Boston around 1674. Therefore the first American news papers came out of the Massachusetts area. One of the more popular news paper publications was Benjamin Franklin's own creation. The Pennsylvania Gazzette was published on a weekly basis for about 37 years by Franklin. Many news papers would eventually follow suit including the first penny daily paper out of New York. This trend of course eventually would spread to every big city and small town in America.
The glory of news papers comes from the speed at which they are printed. Papers and publications were printed by hand until the invention of the pinting press. It was 1814 before the London Times started using a steam powered printing press. More advanced printing machines like the type revolving press were introduced in Philadelphia in 1846 followed by the Lineo-type machine being used by the New York Tribune in 1886. The Lineo-type machine was an important advance based on the fact that multiple pages could be printed faster and easier than ever before. |
 |
The next advance in news paper reporting was the telegraph. It made it possible for Europe to communicate with the United States. This was followed by wireless telegraph and eventually the telephone. We certainly couldn't forget the typewriter which once again greatly increased the efficiency for writing the news for all to read. Today's technology is a far cry from its past. With modern day computer technology and wireless global network communication news can be updated almost instantly anywhere in the world. Today's printing presses are extremely advanced pieces of machinery run by computer and capable of printing at incredible speeds.
 |
Today's news papers throughout the world, although in circulation to billions of people, make more money on advertising than they do on the sale of the individual papers. Most large news papers are owned by large corporations as opposed to the early days of news reporting where a family or a single individual was in complete ownership. Early news papers were run in many cases by just a handful of employees which were responsible for all tasks associated with the operation of a paper. This included gathering the news, writing the articles, creating illustrations, printing the paper, then distributing it. The sophistication of the news paper has most certainly changed over the last few centuries, but the basic idea behind this type publication still holds true, essentially supplying news of interest to people willing to read it. |
|
|
