The history of journalism is closely related to the developments of printing press. The credit for the invention of the art of printing goes to the Chinese. Chinese were the first to use movable types for the printing press.
Even paper was first of all manufactured in China. The first book was also printed by the Chinese people in 868 AD. The Chinese Court Gazette is said to be the oldest newspaper published at Peiking.
The knowledge of art of printing spread to the west from China. The Chinese had developed the movable types between the 9th and 11th century. But it was not until the 14th century that the moving type was introduced in Europe.
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In the 15th century Johann Gutenberg, the goldsmith of Mainz, a city in Germany, developed the movable type. He also invented a suitable ink for the metal type which replaced wooden blocks.
In 1456 Gutenberg printed nearly 300 copies of the Bible. Gradually the printing presses were established in many other countries of the world.
Venice, in Italy became a flourishing centre of printing. In those days, the governments and the churches patronised the printing presses.
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In 1476, Caxton, England’s first printer, set-up a press in Westminster. He had learnt the art of printing in Cologne. He also printed the books in English language whereas before him these used to be printed only in Latin. Soon, presses began to be set up in all the flourishing trading centres of the world.
Bulletines, News Pamphlets etc:
Even in the ancient and early medieval times bulletines, news pamphlets and other propaganda materials used to be pasted on the walls. Sometimes, the royal proclamations or edicts were also pasted on the walls or inscribed on the stones.
The Kings in ancient times used to get written reports from their departments and their agents. There were writers of newsletters who sent news to the persons who were residing far away from the capital of a country.
Newsletter thus is quite an early institution. In India, news writing had become a much prevalent institution during the Mughal regime.
Oldest Morning Newspapers of European Countries:
In the middle of the 16th century the morning newspaper took shape in Europe. First of all, the trading houses published news-books and then newsletters. Generally, political and economic news for general interest was contained in these news- books.
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In 1560, in some towns of Germany and Switzerland serial numbered news-sheets started appearing. In 1609, two news- sheets, namely Avisa from Germany and Relations from Strasbourg started coming out regularly. By 1618, weekly newspapers started coming out in English, French, Dutch and German languages from Amsterdam in Holland.
By 1621, the English printers started their own news-sheets. In 1621, a single news-sheet called a Coranto was published in English. By 1660, weekly publication of news-sheets had been well established in UK.
In 1665, Oxford Gazette, which later on became London Gazette made its appearance. This was a regular newspaper which was published twice weekly. But the first daily newspaper, The Daily Courant, made appearance in England only in 1702.
It was in every sense a newspaper which was printed regularly. The first newspaper to appear in USA was ‘Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestic.’ It was published in 1690 by a British Journalist, Benjamin Harris, who had fled from English and gone to America.
But the first newspaper started by an American, John Campbell, was the Bostob Newsletter published in 1704. In 1783, the first daily newspaper of America appeared in Pennsylvania. The first Russian journal is believed to have been printed in 1703.
Origin of the Press in India:
The printing press was introduced in India in 1556 AD. Ad Newspaper in India is also the by-product of the British rule. The first attempt to start a newspaper in Kolkata was made by William Bolts.
But in reality, JA Hichey an Englishman started the first English Newspaper Bengal Gazette or Calcutta General Advertiser at Kolkata in 1780.
His newspaper consisted of two sheets only. It was specialised in the exposure of the stories regarding the private lives of the servants of the East India Company including its high-ups. Messink and Reed started the next newspaper named as India Gazette. They benefited much from the experiences of Hichey.
In 1784, another paper named Calcutta Gazette was started. After this in 1785, Richard Johnson started the Madras Courier which was published from Chennai. The first newspaper to be published from Mumbai was Bombay Herald which was started in 1789.
Generally, the first newspapers in India were started by those Englishmen who had certain personal grievances against the East India Company. Usually, the circulation of these newspapers was very small and did not exceed not more than one hundred or two hundred copies.
On that time, there was neither any freedom of the press nor any press laws in India. The authorities could use both censorship and pre-censorship on these newspapers.
The printing of these newspapers was not very attractive. Generally, these newspapers printed such things as were of interest to the British residents in India.
They printed parliament’s reports, news regarding army and the developments in English. Of course, news regarding the Indian rules was published. Sometimes, these newspapers also carried newsletters and reports from Europe, Latin America, China, etc.
They had also started publishing letters to the editors, advertisements, news about important social events and the prevailing fashion in the society.
In 1816, Gangadhara Bhattacharya and Harchandra Ray launched a paper from Kolkata Bengal Gazette in Bengali.
It was the first newspaper in Indian languages. In the year 1818 Samachar Darpan weekly started for the first time in Bengali, which introduced ‘Indian Commerce’ among the other topics.
Durjng the First World War a remarkable growth in the circulation of newspapers was witnessed. The period also witnessed a keen competition among foreign manufacturers also between them and within the Indian manufacturers.
To promote their sales they have been looking for an improved channel of publicity which can reach the customers easily and effectively. At this juncture the manufacturers had to rely upon advertising to attract and motivate the customers to their merchandise.
It was realised that the press advertisement was considered as the foremost channel of communication among the media of advertising. Today, anything between 50 per cent to 70 per cent of a publication’s revenue comes from advertising.
The Indian press consists of more than 25,000 newspapers/ magazines/periodicals published in 20 different languages with a combined circulation of more than 75 million.
Oldest Newspapers of India:
Some of the oldest newspapers in India are Bombay Samachar in Gujarati, published from Mumbai, 1832; Times of India in English, Mumbai, 1838; Pioneer in English, Lucknow, 1864; and Amrit Bazar Patrika in English, Kolkata, 1868. Of course, compared with the teeming population of India the number of newspapers and their circulation is very small. This is due to the fact that still a great majority of our countrymen are illiterate.
Leading Newspapers of the World:
There are more newspapers in the world today than there were, say, thirty years ago. This has been possible due to the increased population and technological advancement resulting in wider distribution.
In some of the western countries while the largely distributed national and state newspapers are declining, still the smaller local newspapers flourishing everywhere.
In the developing countries of Asia, Africa and South America new local newspapers are still being started. The number of newspapers in the above countries is constantly on the increase to give information to their newly educated population.
According to an estimate, there were nearly 7,000 daily newspapers in the world in 1952. The total circulation of these newspapers was 230 million copies.
In 1969, the number of these daily newspapers had increased to 8,100 whereas their circulation had increased to 360 million copies.
But these are figures of only daily newspapers. Besides these, there are far more regional or provincial papers, mostly weeklies. Alone in the United States there are 14,000 regional or provincial papers.