Published in ancient Rome it was the earliest known journalistic product. It was essentially a sheet published from 59 B.C. It was posted in prominent places and contained important social and political events.

A court circular named bao (meaning report) was first issued during this dynasty. It was issued to various government officials. It was in circulation in a variety of forms until the Qing Dynasty ended in 1911.

The first regular newspapers began to appear in German cities and Antwerp, Belgium around The first English Newspaper was the Weekly Newes it was first published in The first daily newspaper was The Daily Courant in 1702.

Initially governments censored what newspapers could write and print. By the 18 th century greater freedom of the press was realized. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees a free press.

Started as professional journals featuring opinion pieces on events of the day. The Tatler and Spectator were prominent in Great Britain in the early 1700s. By the early 1830s mass circulation magazines began to appear geared towards a less educated mass audience.

Due to the high cost of gathering news, organizations such as news agencies were formed. News Agencies: organizations that sell their international journalistic reporting to many different individual newspapers and magazines. Examples are UPI, AP, Reuters etc.

The invention of: Telegraph Telephone Radio Television Increased speed and timeliness of journalistic activity. Provided massive new outlets and audiences for their electronically distributed products. In the late 20th century Satellites The Internet Became useful for the long-distance transmission of news and information.

In the 20th century professionalism gained popularity in journalism. Four factors led to this movement: 1. the increasing organization of working journalists 2. specialized education for journalism 3. a growing literature dealing with the history, problems, and techniques of mass communication 4. an increasing sense of social responsibility on the part of journalists.

1883: England chartered the Institute of Journalists. The American Newspaper Guild organized in The Fédération Nationale de la Presse Française ▫It functioned as both a trade union and a professional organization.

Prior to the mid-point of the 1800s, most aspiring journalists began practicing their trade as apprentices, starting off as copyboys or cub reporters. The first college or university course in journalism was offered at the University of Missouri (Columbia) in 1879–84.

Columbia University in New York City established the first graduate program in journalism in They received and endowment from New York City editor and publisher Joseph Pulitzer. It was becoming increasingly apparent that the growing complexity of news reporting and newspaper operation required specialized training. Editors also discovered the need for in-depth reporting of special types of news. Examples are political affairs, business, economics, and science, these fields often demanded reporters with education and background in these areas.

With the arrival of motion pictures, radio, and television as forms news media they created a need for a variety of new skills and techniques in gathering and presenting the news. In turn, by the 1950s, courses in journalism or communications were commonly offered in colleges.

Social responsibility in journalism was largely a byproduct of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Early newspapers and journals were generally intensely partisan in politics and considered that it was the fulfillment of their social responsibility promote their own party’s position and denounce that of the opposition.

As the literate and economically upwardly mobile public grew so did newspaper profits. Newspapers grew in size and wealth and became increasingly independent. Newspapers began to create their own popular and sensational “crusades” in order to increase their circulation. The final outcome of this self-importance was the competition between two New York City papers, the World and the Journal, in the 1890s

Yellow journalism is, essentially, biased opinion disguised as objectivity. It also is the practice of yellow journalism to engage in sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images to boost newspaper sales and excite public opinion. The textbook example of the practice was by two papers founded and popularized in the late 19th century- The New York World, run by Joseph Pulitzer and The New York Journal, run by William Randolph Hearst.

The idea of “hard news” gained acceptance in the journalism community to distinguish items of definite news value from others of questionable significance. Human interest story versus a mayor stealing from a city’s coffers.

The advent of radio and television reporting brought news bulletins to the public with a speed that the written press could not match. To maintain their audience, newspapers provided increasing numbers of interpretive journalism— articles on what was behind the news, personality sketches, and columns of editorial writers skilled in presenting opinion in readable form.

Around the mid-1960s many newspapers, especially in their evening and Sunday editions, were leaning heavily on magazine techniques, except for their content of “hard news,” where the traditional rule of objectivity still applied. Newsmagazines in much of their reporting were blending news with editorial comment.

After World War II novels based on the news took off. The journalistic book, it reported and analyzed things such as election campaigns, political scandals, and world affairs in general. It helped to usher in the “new journalism” of such authors as Truman Capote, Tom Wolfe, and Norman Mailer.

The 20th century saw some governments place restriction on the press. In countries with communist governments, the press was not just owned by the state, and journalists and editors were government employees. Communist governments ruthlessly crushed all opposition so freedom of speech and freedom of the press was denied. Under such a system, the press really did not exist. Their job was to lie about conditions and anyone who opposed their ideology.

In developing or third world countries it was hit or miss. Some enjoyed freedom of the press while others, both communist and otherwise, the press was tightly controlled. Most English speaking countries in the west enjoyed freedom of the press.

How we get our news is changing daily. Many media outlets developed alternative channels of dissemination such as: ▫Online distribution ▫Electronic mailings ▫Direct interaction with the public via forums, blogs, user-generated content, and social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook Celebrity journalism also became more popular as weekly tabloid- style magazines such as Us Weekly increased in both number and sensationalistic content.