newspaper Home Lifestyles & Social Issues Newspapers & Magazines History & Society newspaper Written and fact-checked by Last Updated: Article History Summary Read a brief summary of this topic Newspaper, a publication and form of mass communication and mass media usually issued daily, weekly, or at other regular times that provides news, views, features, and other information of public interest and that often carries advertising. collection of newspapers collection of newspapers See all media Category: History & Society Key People: Karl Marx Henry Fielding Giuseppe Mazzini John Wilkes Nikola Pašić Related Topics: gazette newsletter Pulitzer Prize wall newspaper coranto Forerunners of the modern newspaper include the Acta diurna (“daily acts”) of ancient Rome—posted announcements of political and social events—and manuscript newsletters circulated in the late Middle Ages by various international traders, among them the Fugger family of Augsburg. Armed Forces Radio Services broadcaster Jack Brown interviews Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall for broadcast to troops overseas during World War II. Britannica Quiz Communications Firsts Quiz In England the printed news book or news pamphlet usually related a single topical event such as a battle, disaster, or public celebration. The earliest known example is an eyewitness account of the English victory over the Scots at the Battle of Flodden (1513). Other forerunners include the town crier and ballads and broadsides. In the first two decades of the 17th century, more or less regular papers printed from movable type appeared in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. The Dutch “corantos” (“currents of news”), which strung together items extracted from foreign journals, became the sources for English and French translations published in Amsterdam as early as 1620. Rudimentary newspapers appeared in many European countries in the 17th century, and broadsheets with social news were published in Japan in the Tokugawa period (1603–1867). The first English corantos appeared in London in 1621. By the 1640s the news book had taken the form of a newspaper—the title page being dropped. The first English daily was The Daily Courant (1702–35). Not until 1771 did Parliament formally concede journalists the right to report its proceedings. The Times, which became a model for high quality and later led in mechanical innovation, was founded by John Walter in 1785, and The Observer was founded in 1791. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) set back incipient newspapers in Germany, and censorship in various forms was general throughout Europe. Sweden passed the first law guaranteeing freedom of the press in 1766.