The Rise and Decline of Newspapers.

  I realized the other day that I no longer read newspapers unless there is one lying around. Instead, I hop onto the internet and look for either digital copies of newspapers or hit a news feed looking for a specific topic, otherwise I do not subscribe to anything that is paper.

The printing press making it to Europe opened the way to the modern concept of a newspaper.  The first weekly newspaper appeared in 1604 in Germany.  It is considered a real newspaper because the public could easily access it, it was published on a regular schedule, the information it printed was correct, and it covered a variety of topics.  The only issue is that it was published in quarto ( 9 x 11) rather than folio ( 29.5 x 22.5)

Newspapers began popping up in Germany over the next few years but the one published in 1618 in Amsterdam was technically a broadsheet or folio.  This format spread throughout Europe to England where the first newspaper was published in 1665 in Oxford.  One year the Oxford Gazette moved to London where it was renamed the London Gazette and is still being published today.

Although there were printed news sheets in America early on, the first real printed newspaper appeared in 1690 in Boston but the publisher, Benjamin Harris, was arrested for including political criticisms and all copies of his newspaper were destroyed.  In 1704, the local postmaster in Boston began publishing a newspaper that succeeded due to his keeping out all political criticism.

It was when the first amendment guaranteeing freedom of the press was passed and fully enacted, that the number of newspapers began growing until there were 43 newspapers actively publishing at the end of the Revolutionary War.  By the end of the War of 1812, the number had jumped to 346 newspapers.

At the beginning, newspapers were only afforded by the wealthy Americans but by the 1830's advances made printing much cheaper and newspapers were now able to sell papers for one cent each.  Furthermore as the rate of literacy increased and technology advances such as the telegraph, news sped across the country so newspapers were publishing more up to date information to larger numbers of people.

The industrial revolution created improved printing presses were soon able to produce around 10,000 papers every hour.  This helped increase the number of newspapers companies to 2500 just before the civil war before jumping to 11,000 by 1880.  Several newspapers in 1890 boasted circulations of around one million subscribers.

Unfortunately, as radios and televisions increased in numbers, newspapers faced serious competition causing a decline in the number of newspapers in production.  In addition, the development of the internet and the availability of constant updating of information and news also contributed to the decline of the production of newspapers until there were only about 1,300 produced in 2014.

In fact, the internet has been one of the biggest competitors due to the decreased cost of production which means advertisers get more bang for their buck and are more likely to spend the money on the internet where they can get better coverage.  I suspect if things keep going they way they have, newspapers may totally disappear completely in the next 20 to 50 years.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.