Wendy Boatman, age 13, of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for her question:
Who invented newspapers?
The progress of civilization depends on information and information is useless unless it is available to a large percentage of the population. The business of newspapers is spreading as much reliable information as possible to as many people as possible. Civilization depends on informed citizens who keep up with the times. Nobody invented this idea and no one person invented the modern newspaper. It began perhaps 2,000 years ago as a simple posted notice and advanced in step with civilization.
The Chinese claim that the first real newspaper was their Tsing Pao, a journal that reported events at the court of Peking. Its publication began in the 500s and continued to 1935. If this was the first newspaper, it seems a pity that it was merely a gossipy social journal. The ancestors of more serious newspapers appear to have been invented in Europe, when the Roman Empire was striving to govern the world.
Way back in the fifth century B.C., newsletters from Rome were circulated to interested readers throughout the far flung empire. They carried newsy items about politics and business, wars and natural disasters. These were the true ancestors of the modern newspaper. They were copied by hand and usually carried by travelers who happened to be going in the right direction. Sometimes urgent reports were prepared and carried by special couriers,.
The Roman newsletter was such a logical idea that no inspired genius was needed to invent it. However, in 60 B.C., Julius Caesar became a Roman consul and so began perhaps the most inventive career in all history. He was of course a great one for law and order, as related to the organization of government on a grand scale. He saw that his dreams of empire and civilization depended upon the spread of information ¬far and wide.
Caesar saw the the haphazard Roman newsletters were useful, but not useful enough. One of his first acts as consul was to decree an official bulletin called the Acta Diurna The Events of the Day. Its pages were posted on the walls of the Roman Forum. It was read, silently and aloud, often copied and sent to the far corners of the Empire.
Acta Diurna reported government and other serious events on a scheduled basis. It was indeed the first publication comparable to a responsible modern newspaper.
The next major advance in the newspaper business had to wait until movable type was invented. No particular genius had a flash of inspiration. But early in the 1600s, several German cities thought it would be a good idea to use the new movable type to print newspapers. One of the first publications was The Strasbourg Relation. On September 4, 1609 it carried an eye opening story about a fellow named Galileo who was surveying the wonders of the heavens through his newfangled telescope. Items of this sort qualify a publication as a real. newspaper, spreading useful and truthful information likely to advance the course of civilization.