THE ORIGIN OF NEWS AND NEWSPAPER

NAME: SABIHA MUMTAZ

DEPT: SOCIOLOGY
ROLL NO: 2077135

SUBMISSION DATE:

August.06.20
 THE ORIGIN OF NEWS AND NEWSPAPER

1. News
News is information about recent incidents. This may be given through several various sectors
like electronic communication, printing, word of mouth, and broadcasting.
They claim that the word news is an acronym made up from the words north, east, west,
and south but some explanations are way too easy to accept. The notion that the English
word “news”— that is, information about “current events” (coined by Jessica Garretson Finch),
Apparently because news is information from all over the land so somebody made it up the
notion that the word is an acronym obtained from the initial letters of the four cardinal compass
points (north, east, west, and south).
While this potential origin of the word news seems credible enough, it isn’t actually true.  The
fact is, the word news have its origin in late Middle English around the 14 th century news is the
plural form of the word “new” or “new thing”.  This is the kind of unusual instance of an English
adjective becoming a noun when made plural.   Making this hop from “new” to “news” in
English is thought to have been persuaded by the Old French “nouveau”, meaning “new”. 
“Nouveau” in its plural feminine form becomes the noun “nouvelles”, meaning “news”.
Before the 14th century, English speakers commonly used the word “tidings”, rather than using
the word “news”, practically “the announcement of an event”. The start-off of This Middle
English version was before the 11th century and stems from the Old English term “tidung”
means  “occurrence, event, , or a piece of news”.

2. Newspaper
Newspapers play a role in commerce through the advertisements they carry; they provide
readers with information of current events, such as weather maps and listings of stock prices; and
these newspapers provide a source of entertainment through their stories and as comic strips and
crossword puzzles. However, one of the major function of the newspaper is a crucial function in
a democracy is to provide citizens with information on government and politics
Newspaper is just one of those things that lies in front of us every morning, it brings information,
entertainment from all around the world. But have we never noticed how, when and from where
the newspaper originated. The question kept disturbing my mind until I researched about it As in
early periods there was no concept of newspaper as the paper were yet to be discovered .in those
times the old civilization used to write on stones or metals and sometimes on leather to spread
news .
The printing press was used to spread news in Europe in short after Gutenberg invented the letter
press, signing on movable type, in the 1450s. One of the first printed works that might be
qualified as news was an Italian account of a tournament printed in about 1470. A letter
Christopher Columbus wrote reporting on his discoveries, was set in type and spreading in
Barcelona till the Columbus appeared there in April of 1493. In sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, thousands of printed news books, short pamphlets reporting on a news occurrence, and
news ballad, accounts of news events written in verse and typically printed on one side of a
single sheet of paper, circulated in Europe and, to a lesser bound, in the new European colonies
in America. The early news report printed in the America described about an earthquake in
Guatemala and it was printed in Mexico in 1541. Although they touched upon a number of
variety of news, these news books and news ballads did not modify as newspapers because they
each came out only once, to report exclusively on one story, and they each had no similarity
separate from the particular news story they told.
The early newspapers (The ancient known use of this word in English was in 1670) were usually
printed in one of two formats: in the Dutch style papers, or “corantos,” only two or perhaps four
pages in which the reports were packed densely, or the early German weeklies style, which were
pamphlets in which the news was circulate over eight to twenty-four pages. The many English
publishers, including Butter and Bourne, who sometimes raced but often worked together on
series of early English newspapers, the Dutch style was first used, but later switched to the
German style by 1622.
Some historians report that in 202bc the Chinese civilization became able to distribute news that
contained information only about the matters of the palace .this newspaper was called Tipao.
These newspapers distributed amongst the bureaucrats only. In ancient Rome, Acta diurnal were
published prior to 59 BC (as early as 131 BC). These were daily gazettes, or news sheets,
created by the government that contained information for the public: public news, military
campaigns, retrials, and executions. Before they were chiseled in stone or metal, later, they were
handwritten and ordered in public forums or red from scrolls by town criers. Acta dilurna are
often considered precursors to the modern newspaper. As I said earlier the newspapers were not
used to be written on daily basis .they were written occasionally. But with the passage of time
people learnt that that they need to be aware of what’s happening in the world around them. Then
the people of Venice started to publish weekly newspaper, 1566 was the year when these
newspapers were circulated widely in the streets of Venice .this paper was handwritten. Many
people consider that newspaper as the ancestor of modern newspaper .information on wars and
politics was the main subject of that newspaper. Later on in 1609 first printed newspaper was
published in Germany that almost replaced the handwritten weekly paper .however these
newspapers were heavily censored by the government. The government allowed such news to be
written that they wanted to spread by themselves. These newspapers were in that time used for
the personal interests only. After few years the great Britain were able to publish their
newspaper in 1665 in English language known as oxford gazette later on it was renamed as
London gazette .this newspaper is still being published in London. But all these newspapers are
not considered as the true newspapers because these papers could not stand on the requirements
of a true newspaper.
One of the oldest newspaper to have ever been printed and it was published by Johann Carolus,
in Strasbourg which was a free grand city under the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation.
The World Association of Newspapers, in 2005, recognized that Carolus started printing the
pamphlet in 1605 not in 1609 as it was earlier thought. The pamphlet was published daily and at
short intervals for its readers to keep up with happening news.
Sources:
News:
 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/news-etymology/
 http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/01/the-origin-of-the-word-news/
Newspaper:
 http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Collier%27s%20page.htm
 https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-oldest-newspapers-published-in-
europe.html#:~:text=Relation%20aller%20Furnemmen%20und%20gedenckwurdigen
%20Historien%20It%20is,th