History Of Newspapers Lecture Response

On Tuesday we talked about the history of newspapers. We learned that the oldest newspaper was in Belgium, and it was printed weekly, but is no longer printed. Before that, there was a monthly broad sheet in Venice, which was basically a large piece of paper posted somewhere where people got their information. One thing that I found very interesting was that there is a newspaper in Sweden that started in 1645 and still exists today.

Since innovations in printing have come a long way, the newspaper business has evolved. Since it used to take a long time to print things, newspaper-type things like the broad sheets in Venice only came out about once a month. Now, with our modern technology, we can print things daily. Inventions like the telegraph have also helped newspapers become more efficient. Telegraphs allowed information to travel quickly, so that articles could be written about far away events almost as soon as they happened.

Newspapers have come a long way. Everyday a newspaper gets delivered to my house, and is shared with all of my family members. There are many sections throughout the paper, making it enjoyable to most members of my family. That's one thing that sets newspapers apart. They are shared between many people.

I thought it was interesting to learn that newspaper articles used to be more literary. They used to be much more detailed and story-like. The reason they became shorter and less literary was because the telegraph was an expensive way to share information, so you had to shorten your stories.

This lecture was very interesting because I did not know anything about how and when newspapers started. It's fascinating to learn how much this facet of journalism has evolved.