History of Journalism in Britain

Wikipedia Definition: The history of journalism spans the growth of technology and trade, marked by the advent of specialized techniques for gathering and disseminating information on a regular basis that has caused, as one history of journalism surmises, the steady increase of "the scope of news available to us and the speed with which it is transmitted."

What do I understand by this?

As technology has developed, so has journalism. In the beginning, journalism was simply just word of mouth, but as printing machines were invented and developed, news and information became more widely spread and more easily too. Also, the time in which an event occurred and it being reported to a large amount of people became smaller over time; decades a go, a road may have flooded and people would only know the day after when it appeared in the newspaper. Today, however, thanks to news broadcasts on the TV, radio and on the internet (Twitter, Facebook, news websites), we can know about a road flooding within a few hours, or even minutes of this specific event occurring.

The first British newspaper was the Oxford Gazette, now known as the London Gazette, and has been published regularly ever since 1665. It was originally first published in Oxford, where the government was placed to avoid the plague in London. When the court moved back to London, so did the paper. The name was changed, but was still published twice a week. The first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was first published in 1702 and carried on being printed for more than 30 years. Its first editor was also the first woman in journalism, but was replaced after only a few weeks at the job.

I think without journalism, the whole world would be completely different, for better and for worse. Journalism now comes in many forms, the traditional form of course being newspaper articles. But now, in a more modern world, we have gossip magazines, documentaries and radio shows, that all have some form of journalism linked in with them. Gossip magazines generally have a negative connotation, telling the world about the latest celebrity scandal. But without documentaries such as Channel 4's Unreported World, outlining some of the third world problems, a lot of people in richer, 'first world' countries would know next to nothing about these issues.

"By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, journalism keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community." 

Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900