Bachelor of Journalism & Mass communication, Development of Contemporary Media, Print Journalism

1. Print journalism: The beginning
The forerunners
Perhaps the first daily newspaper in the way we understand it
today was the Acta Diurna, a bulletin begun in 60 BC by the
Roman Consul Julius Caesar. It was a poster in the forum and
gave news of festivals, battles and government announcements.
Other forerunners of the printed newspapers were the bellmen
better known as town criers, posted proclamations, controversial
pamphlets, written by influential people and thinkers,
including political personalities like the ones we discussed in the
Chapter on the Great Revolutions. These pamphlets were
mostly forums for airing opinions rather than the channels of
information or the news. The ballads, broadsides and later the
news pamphlets were the other fore runners. Many of the latter
appeared-during the sixteenth century in Germany and other
European countries and were sold at fairs and in shops.
One of the earliest news pamphlets was News Concernynge the
General Councell Holden at Trydent, a translation from the
German and published in London by Thomas Raynalde in
1549. The news was seldom ‘hot’, often being published long
after the event, and the contents of these pamphlets mostly
dealt with political matters,murders, wonders and scandals.
The German Messrelationen, a half-yearly chronicle of events,
probably had a considerable
influence on later periodical development in Britain.
Printing from movable type, which so rapidly changed the
reading habits throughout the world during the sixteenth
century, was,in fact,slow to catch on. The Chinese knew about
it in the eleventh century, but preferred the wooden block
system.
It is not certain who first introduced it to Europe, but it was
probably a German, Johannes Gutenberg, who set up a
printing works at Mainz on the Rhine in 1450. Caxton began
his first press in Belgium in 1473, moving his business to
Westminster in 1476.
Emergence of censorship
Severe censorship laws made anything but the printing of
books in Britain a hazardous occupation. The earliest attempt at
journalism was Corante, or, Weekely News fromItaly, Germany,
Hungary, Spain and France. First published in September 1621 by
Nicholas Bourne (possibly Nathaniel Butter, because the initials
LESSON-9
PRINT JOURNALISM:THE BEGINNINGS
N.B. were used),it was a small single sheet paper comprising
translations from Dutch and German ‘corantos’.
These news sheets soon became known as carantos or Courant,
although there was no consistency in the titles, some of them
headed simply The Continuation of our Former News or More News
for this Present Week.
The Corantos were permitted by the Star Chamber to deal only
with foreign news and they lost even this privilege in 1632

2. following a complaint by the Spanish ambassador. In 1638,
however, Charles I granted a monopoly to Butter and Bourne,
and when the Star Chamber was abolished in 1641 and
censorship lifted, the way was paved for the first English
newspaper carrying domestic news. In November of that year
began The Head of several proceedings in the present parliament and a
few weeks laterappeared A Perfect Diurnal of the Passagesin
Parliament. The former subsequently became known as Diurnal
Occurrences and these weekly diurnals were on the side of
Parliament until there appeared at Oxford in 1643 the first
Royalist diurnal Mercurius Aulicus,a Diurnal communicating the
intelligence and affaires of the Court to the rest of the Kingdome.
This struck a higher literary note and lasted until 1645 when it
was succeeded by Mercurius Academicus, edited by Sir John
Berkenhead,a fellow of All Souls. Many other pamphlets were
started about this time also, severalof them called Intelligencers.
In 1663, Sir Roger L’Estrange,a former royalist cavalry officer,
was appointed ‘Surveyor of the Press’. By Royal grant he had
conferred on him ‘all the sole privileges of writing, printing and
publishing all narratives, advertisements, mercuries,
intelligencers, diurnals and other books of public intelligence...
with power to search for and seize the unlicensed and treasonable
schismatical and scandalous books and papers.’
L’Estrange terminated two newspapers, Mercurius Politicos and
Kingdom’s Intelligencer, and substituted two others, each costing
a halfpenny, the Intelligencer and the News. The famous London
Gazette appeared on 6 February 1666, although this was the
24th number of the renamed Oxford Gazette, a bi-weekly, which
had been started the previous November by Lord Arlington
and edited by Henry Muddiman. It has appeared without break
ever since, every Tuesday and Friday, as the official organ of the
Government.
Press censorship was finally abandoned in 1693 and a number
of newspapers came into being about this time, one of them,
the Post Boy, a daily, which lasted only four issues. Another of
the newspapers was the Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury
founded in 1695 and the oldest provincial weekly remaining.
The first provincial, in fact,was the Worcester Postman,which
beganin 1690, although this was later merged with the modem
Berrow’s Worcester Journal.
UNIT III
ELEMENTS OF MASS MEDIA
DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARYMEDIA
Weekliescome up
The early part of the eighteenth century saw weeklies springing
up in various towns throughout the country and the increasing
popularity and influence of the newspaper press became
distasteful to the government of the day. The first British daily
newspaper, theDaily Courant, was published in 1702 and by
1711 about 44,000 newspapers were bought weekly.
As check against the growing power of the press, a stamp duty

3. was imposed in 1712. Half sheets were taxed one halfpenny
and whole sheets one penny. The tax proved too much for the
Spectator which discontinued in December of that year. Steele
Started The Guardian in 1713 but it ran for only six months.
Some of the more scurrilous journals, however,kept their
ground and even increased in number and circulation. Amongst
the London papers in 1714 were those which rejoiced in
delightful names like the Lover, the Patriot, the Weekly Pacquet
and Dunton’sGhost. By 1733 many others had joined them,
including fog’s Journal,Mist’s Journal, Oedipusor the Postman
Remounted and the Auditor. Part of the increase was due to
political corruption.
In 1753 the aggregate number of copies of newspapers sold
annually in England, on an average of three years,amounted to
7,411,557. By 1760 it had risen to 9,464,790 and in 1767 to
11,300,980. By 1776 the number of newspapers published in
London alone had increased to fifty-three.
The middle of the eighteenth century saw the development of
the purely political journal side
by side with those papers primarily devoted to news, domestic
and foreign, and commerce.
Social side ofnews paper
The social side of journalism, too, began to find a permanent
place in English literature. Samuel
Johnson’s biweekly, the Rambler, began in 1750 and his weekly,
the Idler, in 1758.
The outstanding daily newspaper about this time was the Public
Advertiser. Between 1764 and 1771 its circulation rose from
47,500 to 84,000 due largely to the famous letters of junius,
attributed to Sir Phillip Francis. It merged, however, with the
Public Ledger in 1798.
Henry Wood fall, who published the Advertiser, also begun the
Morning Chronicle in 1769. By the time Charles Dickens was a
contributor in 1843 its circulation was 6,000. Finally, after a life
of more than ninety years it ended up insolvent, being at one
time the property of the Duke of Newcastle,Gladstone and
others. Three other important and long-lived dailies were
started in the eighteenth century-the Morning Post, The Times and
the Morning Advertiser.
Newspapers were the victims of even heavier taxes during the
latter half of this century. In 1756 an additional half-penny was
added to the 1712 Stamp Tax and various restrictions were
imposed in the years following. Between 1789 and 1815 four
further tax increases were imposed, a newspaper carrying a
government duty of four pence per copy, less a discount of
twenty per cent.
Some idea of the extent of the tax on knowledge may be
gathered from the fact that nearly 29,400,000 stamps were’
issued in 1820. It was impossible for the owners to pass the
duty to advertisers, for in 1804 an advertisement tax of three
shillings and sixpence was imposed. In 1828 the proprietors of

4. The Times had to pay more than 68,000 in stamp and advertisement
taxes and paper duty.
Conflict between state and media
Between 1831 and 1835 hundreds of unstamped newspapers
made their appearance. The political tone of most of them was
fiercely revolutionary. Prosecutions failed to suppress the
obnoxious sheets. Lord Lytton, the novelist and politician, was
a fierce campaigner in the cause of press freedom and in 1836
the tax was reduced to one penny and finally abolished in 1855.
In the following two years 107 new newspapers were
begun,81provincial and 26 metropolitan. Duty on paper itself
was finally abolished in 1861.
Following the reduction of the stamp tax in 1836 to one penny,
the circulation of English newspapers more than trebled from
39 million to 122 million in 1854. Complete removal of the
duty enabling enormous reduction in prices sent circulations
soaring to unprecedented heights
Of the present day national daily newspapers,perhaps The
Times has enjoyed prestige and success as a top people’s paper
the longest. Begun by John Walter on 1 January 1785, it was
originally called the Daily Universal Register. Its founder promised
the readers of the new journal that it would contain nothing to
wound anyone’s delicacy or corrupt the mind, that it would
abstain from unfair partisanship and scandalous scurrility.
Exactly three years later the Newspaper changed its name to The
Times.
During its early years,in common with its competitors, it was
‘gagged’ by the restrictions on free speech and Walter had a
number of sojourns in Newgate Jail and had to pay several
fines for criticism of the authorities. One of his offences was
accusing the then Prince of Wales and other royal princes of
misconduct and incmring the just anger of George III.
Walter’s son, also John, took over the paper in 1803 and
introduced a better system of news transmission and in 1814
steam printing. The latter enabled him to make the proud boast
that 1,100 sheets had been impressed in one hour. Despite
taxes,the circulation rose to 5,000 by the time of Waterloo in
1815. This had doubled twenty years later and was more than
50,000 in 1854. Its nearest rival, the Morning Advertiser, had
fewer than 8,000. The number of pages rose too, from four in
1803 to twelve in 1847.
The man who ‘more than any other was The Times and
thundered through it to the shaking of the spheres,according
to Carlyle, was Captain Edward Sterling. A prominent writer
under editor Barnes in the ‘thirties, he also became known as
‘Captain Whirlwind’.
About the beginning of the twentieth century The Times had
begun to feelthe influence of the more go-ahead methods of
the popular press, and following a period of anxiety for its
owners, Lord Northcliffe finally realized his ambition and
acquired control in 1908.

5. 53
DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARYMEDIA
He remodeled the organisation and increased its efficiency, and
shortly after his death in 1922, Major J.J. Astor,MP,became
chairman and chief proprietor. Although the circulation of The
Times in this century has been amongst the lowest of the
national dailies, it has continued to enjoy its reputation as the
‘Thunderer’ and enjoyed a prestige and leadership in opinion
that has made it a national institution. The approval by the
Monopolies Commission in January 1967 of Lord Thomson’s
take-over bid meant another change in ownership and linked it
for the first time with The Sunday Times (the two had often been
mistaken as related) and the mighty Thomson publishing and
broadcasting empire.
Ownership and rise ofMedia barons
The Daily Telegraph was first published in 1855 as the Daily
Telegraph and Courier, a two penny paper. Its title reflected the
importance of the most recent invention in communications,
the telegraph system. It rapidly became the mouthpiece of the
new middle classes and shortly before the advent of the
halfpenny paper could claim the largest circulation in world.
Although now a pillar of the Tory cause,it was consistently
Liberal up to 1878 when it opposed Gladstone’s foreign policy.
In 1886 at the Irish Home Rule split it became Unionist. The
Morning Post, founded in 1772, was absorbed in 1937.
The News Chronicle, which was absorbed into the Daily Mail in
1960, resulted from the amalgamation of severalother papers,
notably the Daily News and the Daily Chronicle, both started in
the latter half of the nineteenth century. The Daily Mail began
life as a halfpenny daily in 1896. By 1900 it had reached a
circulation of one million and, by 1929, two million. By this
time Lord Rothermere was the proprietor, inheriting ownership
on the death of his brother Northcliffe, in 1922. In the late
‘twenties and’ thirties the Mail was pioneer in the field of
popular journalism and had become the largest circulation daily
newspaper in the world.
The turn of the century saw the birth of the Daily Express, also
a halfpenny paper. It was founded B. C. Arthur Pearson and by
the ‘thirties had passed the Mail in circulation through free gift,
creating a precedent in British journalism, although borrowing
the idea from America, it began publishing main news on the
front page, an idea which was quickly followed by its rivals. The
Times was the last to hold out. It retained advertisements on
its front page until May 1966. Now, like all other British
nationals, its front page is the paper’s ‘shop window’.
R.D. Blumenfield became editor in 1904 and formed a syndicate
in 1912 which acquired control. Lord Beaverbrook, then Max
Aitken, began to take an interest soon after, while the newspaper
was in financially low water,and acquired complete control
in 1918. He spent large sums developing the Express, introducing
simultaneous printing in London, Manchester and

6. Glasgow. The present circulation is a little over four million.
Another Northcliffe venture at the beginning of the century
was the founding of the Daily Mirror in 1903. It began life as a
women’s paper edited by women. When it did not succeed it
became the first halfpenny illustrated tabloid. It retained a
family flavour, catering especially for its women readers,and
now it has it has a circulation of over five mission and claims to
have largest daily sale on earth.
The Daily Sketch was founded in 1909 and absorbed the
Graphic in the 1920s. Acquired later by Rothermere it was sold
to Lord Kemsley and in 1946 became once again the Daily
Graphic. Ownership passed again to Associated Newspapers,
controlled by Lord Rothermere,in 1953, and the Graphic
became once more the Daily Sketch.
The Sun, Britain’s newest national daily, first appeared in 1964.
It replaced the Daily Herald founded in 1921 as an organ for the
Labour Party,and which was officially taken over by the party in
1923. In 1929 Odhams took a controlling interest on the
agreement it would support the policies of the TUC. With the
aid of fire insurances and other inducements it gradually built
up a large circulation, topping over two million at its peak. The
Sun is published by the International Publishing Corporation
which took over Odhams and which also publishes the Mirror.
Its policy is described as ‘left of centre’.
The Morning Star, the only British daily newspaper supporting
the Communist party, was founded in 1932 as the Daily
Worker. It was suppressed in 1941 for opposing the government
war effort and did not appear again for twenty months,
when Russia joined in the war against Germany. It changed its
title to its present name in 1966 and has a circulation of about
63,000.
Amongst the Sunday newspapers, The Observer is the oldest
surviving, being founded in 1791. It reported the Battle of
Trafalgar in 1805 without headlines. The Sunday Times is the
second oldest. It was founded in 1822, acquired by the Berry
family in 1915 and became Lord Thomson’s first
national newspaper in Britain in 1959. Under his proprietorship
it has proved that with a ~kilful team of journalists a serious
newspaper can also enjoy popular sales. Its current circulation,
which is steadily rising, is now approaching one and a half
million. It was the first newspaper in Britain to issue a colour
supplement in 1962.
Enjoying the largest circulation of all the Sunday papers-and the
largest circulation of a newspaper in the world-is the News of the
World. Specialising in sport, crime, divorce cases and exposure
stories, it was founded in 1843. Sir Emsley Carr was editor for
half a century from 1891 until his death in 1941. In the late
‘fifties it had a circulation of eight million. It is now about
6,250,000.
Second largest is The People, founded in 1881 and with a
circulation of about five and a half million. The Sunday Mirror

7. began life in 1915 as the Sunday Pictorial, the weekend sister
paper of the Daily Mirror, it changed to its present title in 1963.
Sales exceed five million.
The Sunday Express wasstarted by Lord Beaverbrook in 1918
and can claim, perhaps, to be the only popular Sunday newspaper
with a classless readership. Its circulation is about 4,250,000.
After the Worcester Postman and the Stamford Mercury, a number
of weekly newspapers sprang up throughout England in the
early part of the eighteenth century. Their growth was slow,
however, due largely to the taxes. By the beginning of the
nineteenth century there were less than 100 provincial newspapers,
and none enjoyed much influence. The Leeds Mercury,
54
DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARYMEDIA
founded in 1717, became the most influential and important of
the North country papers about this time.
Within ten years of the abolition of the stamp duty and other
taxes,morning papers sprang up in Manchester,Liverpool,
Leeds,Newcastle,Bradford, Birmingham, Huddersfield,
Nottingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Plymouth; in Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee; and across the water in
Ireland. The great thirst for knowledge by a newly educated class
made newspaper ownership a profitable business.
Two of the great provincial dailies which have won national
fame and status, are The Guardian, formerly The Manchester
Guardian, and The Yorkshire Post, the principal Tory voice outside
London. The former was founded in 1821 and the Post in 1754.
The two leading Scottish newspapers are The Scotsman and the
Glasgow Herald.
Canada got its first newspaper,the Halifax Gazette, a two page
weekly, in 1751. Over half
a century later Australia caught up with the news when George
Howe started the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser
in 1803. It changed its name to The Tasmanian in 1825.
New Zealand got its first newspapers before the pioneers had a
chance to build themselves houses. The Wakefield Expedition
of 1839 got out a paper at Wellington (then Port Nicholson),
and in 1840 the Hobson Expedition started the New Zealand
Advertiser at Kawakawa The first South African newspaper was
the Cape Town Gazette and African Advertiser which began in 1800.
It was over fifty years after the setting up of the first printing
presses in America before the first real newspaper arrived. It was
Public Occurrences both Foreign and Domestick, published by
Benjamin Harris. Harris, a London bookseller, had fled to the
States from England after imprisonment for publishing a
seditious pamphlet. The intention had been to issue the newsy
three-page paper (the back was left blank for personal notes)
once a month-’or if any glut of occurrences happen,oftener’.
Alas for Harris, the Governor of Boston suppressed it and
issue number two never appeared. The Boston News-Letter
fourteen years later in 1704 became the first continuously

8. published news-paper in the USA.
The average Briton today reads more newspapers and magazines
than any of his counterparts in other countries of the
world.
The removal of taxes in the middle of the last century coupled
with the efficient growth of the railway system, made it possible
for newspaper to be bought cheaply and be widely available for
the first time. Added to this, the improvements in the educational
system during the latter part of the nineteenth century
and the emergence of a working class that was increasingly
literate, meant newspapers fulfilled a social need.
By 1900 the Press was on the threshold of a concentration of
ownership. By 1938 the process was well advanced and out of
eight London ‘evenings’ at the turn of the century only three
survived. The resultant concern led to the settirg up of two
Royal Commissions. The first in 1947 studied certain editorial
aspects,and the 1961 Commission examined the economics
and financial structure of the newspaper industry.
Part of the formula commended was the incorporation of the
Monopolies and Mergers Act of 1965. The Act states that any
take-over involving a joint circulation of 500,000 or more
should have the written consent of the Board of Trade. Any
persons defying this are now liable to two years’ imprisonment,
a fine, or both. The Times merger with the Thomson newspaper
group, which was approved in January 1967, was the first case
considered by the Monopolies Commission
News men and Journalists:
Some Early Pioneers
Perhaps the few remaining town criers can legitimately claim to
be the earliest surviving ‘newsmen’ in Britain. With their
distinctive uniforms and hand bells, and equipped with a
vociferous voice, they readily attracted an eager crowd anxious to
hear the latest official announcements.
Although printing was known and used in England during the
fifteenth century, the laws against unlicensed printing were so
severe that the few owners of presses would not risk imprisonment
by helping publish anything not approved by the
authorities.
In addition, the libel laws were considerably more haphazard
than today. The decision of whether a libel had been committed
or not rested solely with the judge, and since he was invariably a
supporter of the government, anything critical of Parliament
would almost certainly land those responsible for it in jail.
The introduction of newspapers into Britain was,therefore,a
slow and, for the publishers, often a costly and painful experience.
Certainly the early Press did not enjoy the freedom it does
today. The pamphleteers of the seventeenth century had
frequent clashes with officialdom and many of their publications
were suppressed immediately or soon after their
publication.
Sir Roger L’Estrange took a leading part in bringing to justice

9. Titus Oates. In 1681 he began The Observator, exchanging Tory
arguments in the form of a debate with ‘typical’ Whigs. The
tories always got the better of it!
By about 1660 St Paul’s Cathederal had become a popular daily
rendezvous for those who both lived and worked in the city of
London. People of all ranks and classes went there to exchange
news and listen to it.
Amongst the daily crows was Henry Muddiman, a young man
in his thirties who alone had the authority of State to publish
news. A former schoolmaster, he would stand, note-book in
hand, and listen attentively as politicians and other leading
citizens passed him tidbits for his columns.
The close proximity of Fleet Street to St Paul’s, was perhaps one
reason why it became the headquarters of the British Press.
Muddiman, after collecting the latest news, would walk down
Ludgate Hill to a tavern in Fleet Street. There,in a private back
room, he would dictate to about a dozen scriveners-writerswho
wrote the news on three sides of a folded sheet of paper.
These early newsletters were all written by hand, and when the
scriveners had written one copy they would make others, also.
Muddiman charged five pounds a year for his newsletter. The
scriveners delivered them in the London area and those for
55
DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARYMEDIA
country subscribers were taken to the coaching inns to be
conveyed with the mail.
The first Scottish journalist was Thomas Sydserf, editor of
Scotland’s Mercurius Caledonius, which began in 1661. Perhaps
the earliest publication which could properly be called a newspaper
was the Edinburgh Gazette, 1699.
Defoe was an ardent pamphleteer. Whilst in Newgate he began
his Weekly Review of the Affairsof France, almost immediately
afterwards altered to A Review of the State of the English Nation,
which he continued to write from various parts of the country
in 1713. The review was not really a newspaper,but it was
‘quality’ publication. One of Defoe’s first competitors in this
field was Sir Richard Steele, who began The Tatler in 1709.
Some authorities regard Defoe as the originator of the serial
story. When his review came to an end, he published between
1716 and 1720 a monthly with an old title Mercurius Politicus.
Another influential contributor during the early part of the
eighteenth century was Jonathan Swift, who wrote for the chief
Tory organ, the Examiner, which began in 1710. Swift was also
father of the leading article-sometimes referred to as the ‘folly’.
There were many other brilliant journalists besides: Henry St
John, Viscount Bolingbroke, Matthew Prior, Francis Atterbury
and John Arbuthnot. Swift was editor of the Examiner for
thirty-three issues from November 1710 until June 1711, when
he gave it up after being appointed Dean of St Patrick’s.
Britain’s first daily newspaper to survive more than four issues
was the Daily Courant which appeared in March 1702. Many

10. people supposed its publisher was a man, because of the initial
‘E’ before the surname of Mallet. The ‘E’, however,stood for
Elizabeth, and so, from the very beginning, women have played
an important and equal role in the production and writing of
newspapers in this country.
The first issue had only ten paragraphs and a total of 104 lines.
There was no home news,
most of the contents being translations from the French and
Dutch newspapers. After only nine issues it ran into difficulties
and was rescued by Samuel Buckley. It was later increased in size
to four pages and then six and survived 6,002 issues.
Women, in fact,played a very important part in the early days of
British journalism. The second
editor of the Daily Courant was Mary de la Riviere Manley,
daughter of Sir Roger Manley.
At twenty-four after a disastrous bigamous marriage, she
published Letters written by Mrs Manley (1696). She wrote a
number of plays and books and succeeded Dean Swift as editor
of the Examiner in 1711.
Another publishing pioneer was Mrs Elizabeth Powell. She
introduced the first six-page
newspaper,the Charitable Mercury in 1712.
One current daily newspaper,albeit a specialist one, which had
its beginnings in 1696, is Lloyd’s List. Edward Lloyd, founder
of ‘Lloyds’, started a thrice-weekly paper, Lloyd’s News. Its career
was fairly short-lived, for after seventy-six issues a public
apology was demanded of the owner for a reference to the
House of Lords. Lloyd chose instead to discontinue publication,
and it was
not until thirty years later that the partially revised it under the
title Lloyd’s List, published at first weekly, afterwards twiceweekly
and subsequently daily.
Opposing the government stamp taxes on newspapers and
their effect on newspaper economies -and free speech,John
Wilkes began in 1761 the North Briton. Campaigning vigorously
for the liberty of the Press,his determined fight helped
establish in 1772 the right to publish Parliamentary reports.
By the 1770s fresh newspapers were starting up and others
dying at the rate of practically one a month. George Crabbe,
expressing his amazement at the number, wrote:
For soon as morning dawns with roseate hue,
The ‘Herald’ of the morn arises too,
‘Post’ after ‘Post’ succeeds,and all day long
‘Gazettes’ and ‘Ledgers’ swarm,a motley throng.
When evening comes she comes with all her train
Of ‘Leadgers’,‘Chronicles’, and ‘Posts’ again,
Like bats appearing when the sun goes down,
From holes obscure and corners of the town.
One of the first attempts at ‘popular’ journalism, or rather an
effort to reach the working classes,
was pioneered by William Cobbett. He reduced the price of his

11. Weekly Political Register from one Shilling and a halfpenny to
two pence in an endeavour to reach a less affluent audience and
gain support for Parliamentary reform.
A noticeable newspaper for its dramatic criticism was the
Examiner, begun in 1808 by Leigh Hunt. Both he and his
brother landed in prison for too frank a criticism of the Prince
Regent. A literary group of old boys from Hunt’s former
school, Christ’s Hospital (the Bluecoat School), began to centre
around him and Charles Lamb, and they made a considerable
impression on early nineteenth-century journalism. Perhaps the
greatest journalist of the century was Thomas Barnes,son of
an attorney, who, after Christ’s Hospital and Cambridge,
studied for the Bar. Joining The Times in 1809, he became editor
in 1817 at the age of thirty-two.
Scholarly, virile, patriotic, plain spoken, and a servant of the
interests of the rising middle classes,Barnes so dominated the
newspaper world that the course of English journalism during
the first half of the last century must largely be followed in the
story of that paper’s meteoric rise in success and influence. Lord
Brougham’s secretary,Denis Le Marchant,writing of him in
1834, said: ‘The Times was at this period without doubt the
leading journal in Europe ...the other newspaper were comparatively
insignificant.’ John Thadeus Delane, who succeeded
Barnes as editor on the latter’s death in 1841, enjoyed such close
confidences with two Prime Ministers, Aberdeen and
Palmerston, that his paper obtained many sensational
exclusives. It is doubtful whether any editor before or since has
received confidences from ministers of all parties over so long a
period as Delane.
56
DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARYMEDIA
The first was correspondent was sent out by The Times. William
Howard Russell, later knighted, pitched his tent alongside the
British lines at Scutari, and for the first time ‘live’ first-hand
accounts of the Crimean War published in a daily newspaper.
Russell met with opposition from the military authorities from
the start. He attacked the management,exposed the muddled
conduct and pleaded on behalf of the sick and wounded. As
the official history of The Times summarises it, the paper had
been:
Largely responsible for the Crimean campaign that had brought
victory in the end; it had ‘saved the remnant of an army’; it had
destroyed one Ministry and forced important changes in
another; and it had a used the removal of a Commander-in-
Chief. Russell came home in a blaze of glory, to be ‘lionised’ as
no journalist had ever been before.
The outspokenness of Russell in his dispatches, however,
resulted in ‘security’ intervening to
limit certain information and comment.
In Journalists’ Corner at St Paul’s Cathedral, Russell is named as
the ‘First and greatest’ of the war correspondents. But journalists

12. remember with equal pride are Archibald Forbes, who rode
to Pietermaritzburg by balloon post in 1871, and Sir Winston
Churchill, for his exploits in the South African War.
Newspapers were often produced during active service, too, and
credit should go to the early pioneers who kept morale high
with newspapers like the Ladysmith Lyre and Mafeking Mail. In
the last war,one very important newspaper deliverer was
General Montgomery. He helped distribute the issue of the
Eighth Army News aIU10uncing the capture of Tobruk.
Just as a woman had been the first to publish a daily newspaper
in Britain, so another, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson” became the
publisher of the first Sunday paper, setting a precedent for
success at the top of a profession which has rarely known sex
discrimination.
Elizabeth Johnson’s British Gazette and Sunday Monitor probably
began in the spring of 1780. The earliest surviving issue is
number 66 dated 24 June 1781. It has four pages, cost three
pence and later shortened its name to Sunday Monitor. By 1816
the price was seven pence. Perhaps the first woman writer on
the stuff of a newspaper and certainly the first woman leader
writer was Harriet Martineau. Born in 1802, the sixth of eight
children, she soon began to pursue a literary career,and became
manager of Thomas Carlyle’s lectures. At the age of fifty she
was approached byFrederick Knight Hunt of the Daily News
who invited her to become a leader writer. Working from her
Lake District home she wrote more than sixteen hundred pieces
for the paper in fourteen years.
Another pioneer, although in a different branch of journalism,
was Mark Lemon, first editor of Punch. He wasone of that rare
breed of Victorians, possessing an inexhaustible store of energy
and gusto. A prolific author and dramatist, he edited the
magazine for close on thirty years and was principally responsible
for its survival during the early days of struggle.
To Mark Lemon fell the assignment of preparing the Punch
prospectus. ‘This guffawgraph,’ he announced, ‘is intended to
form a refuge for destitute wit-an asylum for the thousands of
orphan jokes-the superannuated Joe Millers-the millions of
perishing puns, which are now wandering about without so
much as a shelf to rest upon.’
Punch was born in Crane Court, Fleet Street,on 17 July 1841.
Production costs soon outstripped the proceeds and Lemon
was forced to pouring the income from his plays into the
magazine to keep it going. In later years he used to say: ‘I was
made for Punch and Punch for me. 1 should never have succeeded
in any other way’. It has now become an essential
ingredient of contemporary journalism.
Some of t.he literary giants of the nineteenth century were also
prolific journalists. Two popular magazines were Dickel’s’s
Household Words and Thackeray’s Cornhill. Charles Dickens was
editor of the Daily News in 1846, but gave up after only
seventeen issues ‘tired to death and quite worn out’.

13. To meet the growing need for pictorial journalism, the Illustrated
London News was founded in 1848 by Herbert Ingram. As with
all the early newspapers and magazines, illustrations were line
drawings, and in the first issue there was a detailed reconstruction
of the Fire of Hamburg.
Just as railways speeded the delivery of newspapers,so the
invention of the telegraph system made swift communication
of news possible. On 6 August 1844 The Times, recording the
birth of Victoria’s: second son in its second edition, said: ‘We
are indebted to the extraordinary power of the Electro-Magnetic
Telegraph for the rapid communication of this important
announcement.’ In its early days, however, the telegraph was
limited in range and expensive.
One of the greatest British newspaper proprietors, Viscount
Northcliffe, began life as Alfred Harmsworth, eldest of fourteen
children, in 1865. His father was a barrister. Young Harmsworth
began contributing to newspapers and magazines at an early are
and by the time he was twenty-three started his own publishing
company in London and a magazine called Answers. He was
joined by his brother Harold (Lord Rothermere) and soon the
magazine was selling one million copies a week and netting a
profit of £50,000 a year.
In 1894 he acquired the Evening News and two years later
launched the Daily Mail. The latter catered for a new class of
inquisitive reader-especially women-created by compulsory
education. For the first time proper attention was paid to type
and display of news and features G. W. Steevens,the famous
South African War Correspondent, gained many new readers for
the paper and in 1903 the Continental Daily Mail was begun in
Paris. Soon afterwards he entered the newsprint business in
Newfoundland and in 1908 bought The Times for £ 320,000,
thus saving it from possible extinction.
He spared no expense to inject new life into the once supreme’
Thunderer’. The circulation had dropped to 40,000, so in an
effort to boost sales he introduced new equipment and new
methods of presenting the news. Its failure to rally under
Northcliffe was perhaps partly due to his attempts to
‘popularise’ The Times, but he at least spared it from a near
certain death.
Refernces-
1. Davis, Anthony; Magazine Journalism Today; (1988); Heinemann
2. Baird, Click; Magazine and Production; 4th edition
3. Mogel; The Magazine
4. Anderson, Douglas;
Contemporary Sports Reporting; (1985); Nelson-Hall
5. Melkote, Srinivas; Communication for development in the third world; (1991); Sage
6. Ed. Glasser, Theodore; The idea of Public, Journalism;(1999); Guilford Press