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News
In the second century of the Common Era, the Han dynasty of China established a sophisticated network of handwritten news sheets known as tipao, circulating among court officials to report on imperial events. These documents, which predate European newspapers by over a millennium, were produced by a Bureau of Official Reports called the Jin Zhouyuan, designed to centralize information flow across a vast empire. During the Tang dynasty, between 713 and 734, the Kaiyuan Za Bao, or Bulletin of the Court, was published on silk and read by government officials, marking one of the earliest known instances of a government-produced news sheet. The system relied on a postal network that allowed information to travel across the empire, with postmasters required to write summaries of events and transmit them along specified routes. This early form of news was not merely a record of history but a tool of governance, allowing the imperial court to maintain control over information and ensure that local representatives were aligned with central authority. The existence of these documents challenges the notion that news is a purely modern invention, revealing instead a deep historical root in the human desire to share and control information.
The Rise of The Newspaper
The first formalized newspaper emerged in Germany in 1605 with the publication of Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien, a document that mashed together unrelated reports from far-flung locations into a jarring new format for readers. Unlike the discreet, dispassionate manuscript newsletters that preceded it, these new publications were often committed and engaged, intended to persuade as well as inform, and they became part of the entertainment industry. In England, the government created a licensing system by 1530 to ban seditious opinions, and the London Gazette, published by authority, exemplified the tight control governments exerted over the press. The Licensing Act, which restricted publication to approved presses, lapsed in 1695, beginning an era marked by Whig and Tory newspapers and the eventual rise of a more open press. In the United States, the 1792 Postal Service Act subsidized a rapidly growing news network by offering free postage to newspapers that exchanged copies, allowing editors to rely on other papers for national news. By 1880, San Francisco rivaled New York in the number of different newspapers and printed copies per capita, fueled by a newspaper-loving culture and high literacy rates. The spread of newspapers to sub-Saharan Africa began with The Royal Gazette and Sierra Leone Advertiser in 1801, followed by other publications that promoted colonial governments and European settler interests, though indigenous newspapers like the Muigwithania later agitated for African independence.
Common questions
When did the Han dynasty establish the tipao news sheets?
The Han dynasty established the tipao news sheets in the second century of the Common Era. These handwritten documents circulated among court officials to report on imperial events and predate European newspapers by over a millennium.
What was the first formalized newspaper and when was it published?
The first formalized newspaper was Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien published in Germany in 1605. This document mashed together unrelated reports from far-flung locations into a jarring new format for readers.
Who founded the Bureau Havas news agency and when?
Charles-Louis Havas founded Bureau Havas in Paris in 1832. He initially used the French government's optical telegraph network and later began using pigeons for communications to Paris, London, and Brussels before adopting the electric telegraph.
When did the British Broadcasting Company begin transmitting radio news?
The British Broadcasting Company began transmitting radio news from London in 1922. This service was dependent entirely on British news agencies and marketed itself as news by and for social elites.
When was the Netscape browser released to make the internet available to the public?
The Netscape browser was released in 1994 to make the internet available to a wider public. The 1994 earthquake in California was one of the first big stories to be reported online in real time following this release.
The development of the electrical telegraph in the nineteenth century enabled news to travel faster and over longer distances, leading to the centralization of news in the hands of wire services concentrated in major cities. Charles-Louis Havas founded Bureau Havas in Paris in 1832, using the French government's optical telegraph network, and later began using pigeons for communications to Paris, London, and Brussels before adopting the electric telegraph. Bernhard Wolff founded Wolffs Telegraphisches Bureau in Berlin in 1849, and Paul Reuter established the Reuters news agency in London in 1851, specializing in news from the continent. By the turn of the century, Wolff, Havas, and Reuters formed a news cartel, dividing up the global market into three sections with exclusive distribution rights and relationships with national agencies. This oligopolistic structure controlled the flow of information, with each agency's area corresponding roughly to the colonial sphere of its mother country. The wire services brought forth the inverted pyramid model of news copy, in which key facts appear at the start of the text, and more details are included as it goes along, a style that spilled over into newspapers. In 1865, Reuters had the scoop on the Lincoln assassination, reporting the news in England twelve days after the event took place, and in 1866, an undersea telegraph cable successfully connected Ireland to Newfoundland, cutting trans-Atlantic transmission time from days to hours.
The Age Of Broadcast News
The British Broadcasting Company began transmitting radio news from London in 1922, dependent entirely on British news agencies and marketing itself as news by and for social elites, hiring only broadcasters who spoke with upper-class accents. The BBC gained importance during the May 1926 general strike, when newspapers were closed and radio served as the only source of news for an uncertain public, taking an unambiguously pro-government stance against the strikers. In the United States, RCA's Radio Group established its radio network, NBC, in 1926, and the Paley family founded CBS soon after, with these two networks dominating the airwaves throughout the period of radio's hegemony as a news source. By 1939, 58% of Americans surveyed by Fortune considered radio news more accurate than newspapers, and 70% chose radio as their main news source. The war provided an opportunity to expand radio and take advantage of its new potential, with the BBC reporting on the Allied invasion of Normandy on the morning it took place, and the U.S. setting up its Office of War Information to send programming across South America, the Middle East, and East Asia. In Britain and the United States, television news watching rose dramatically in the 1950s, and by the 1960s, it supplanted radio as the public's primary source of news, with Edward R. Murrow making the big leap from radio to television to become an iconic newsman on CBS.
The Digital Disruption
The early internet, known as ARPANET, was controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense and used mostly by academics, but it became available to a wider public with the release of the Netscape browser in 1994. At first, news websites were mostly archives of print publications, but the new availability of web browsing made news sites accessible to more people, and the 1994 earthquake in California was one of the first big stories to be reported online in real time. The internet has transformed the understanding of news, blurring the boundaries of who is a legitimate news producer, with millions of people in countries such as the United States and South Korea taking up blogging. Social media sites, especially Twitter and Facebook, have become an important source of breaking news information and for disseminating links to news websites, with Twitter declaring in 2012 that it is like being delivered a newspaper whose headlines you'll always find interesting. Cell phone cameras have normalized citizen photojournalism, and the work of journalism can now be done from anywhere and done well, requiring no more than a reporter and a laptop. Michael Schudson, professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, has said that everything we thought we once knew about journalism needs to be rethought in the Digital Age, as the ground journalists walk upon is shaking, and the experience for both those who work in the field and those on the outside studying it is dizzying.