The origin of newspapers was an intense involvement of human history. The first newspaper was written in Germany in the late 1400’s in pamphlet form, filled to the max.
The new printing press altered the extent and influence of the newspaper, paving the way for modern-day journalism. The first weekly newspapers to employ Gutenberg’s press transpired in 1609. In Renaissance Europe, handwritten newsletters were distributed confidentially among wholesalers, passing along information about everything from wars and economic conditions to social customs and “human interest” features. Although the papers did not name the cities in which they were printed to avoid government oppression, their precise location can be acknowledged because of their use of the German language. Notwithstanding these apprehensions over coercion, the papers were a success, and newspapers quickly spread throughout Central Europe.
In England, newspapers were unconstrained by the governments control, and people began to feed off of the free press. Papers took benefit of this new freedom and began publishing more frequently. Published every two weeks, papers had ad space to fun the paper production. This made simple journalists into business men. Once publishers noticed the growing popularity and profit potential of newspapers, they founded daily publications.
Newspapers did not come to the American colonies until September 25, 1690, when Benjamin Harris printed Public Occurrences, before fleeing to America for printing an article about a purported Catholic plot against England, Harris had been a newspaper editor in England. Fourteen years passed before the next American newspaper, The Boston News-Letter, launched. Fifteen years after that, The Boston Gazette began publication, followed instantaneously by the American Weekly Mercury in Philadelphia. Newspaper organizations remain applicable because they publish news and information and get it out to the world when readers want it newspapers are there for their readers, providing timely reports of events as they happen. But the headlines and timely reports are only part of the job. Readers want to know not just “what happened,” they want to know “how” and “why,” and they want to comprehend the implications nearby the event.
