What are some of earliest examples of independent journalism?

Upvote:0

The earliest proto newspaper in Europe might be what you are looking for?

In ancient Rome there were the Acta Diurna, (also Acta urbis or populi diurna acta), daily news propagated on the forum, as white wash boards, chiseled in stone, copied to papyri. The latter also distributed into the provinces. This was even more true for the weekly Commentarius Rerum Novarum.

This was of course centrally planned, initially, for example under strict instructions from Julius Caesar. But the "independent" part comes in when you see how the publications expanded. The governmental 'official news' were supplemented with curious events, gossip and 'yellow stuff' by the copyists and distributors.

The site "Professional Journalsism" claims to have a (very rare) picture of a papyrus version of one issue of Acta diurna

enter image description here

This picture needs some salt to go with it, as modern scholarship concurs with the old Britannica entry:

Its contents were partly official (court news, decrees of the emperor, senate and magistrates), partly private (notices of births, marriages and deaths). Thus to some extent it filled the place of the modern newspaper (q.v.). The origin of the Acta is attributed to Julius Caesar, who first ordered the keeping and publishing of the acts of the people by public officers (59 B.C.; Suetonius, Caesar, 20). The Acta were drawn up from day to day, and exposed in a public place on a whitened board (see Album). After remaining there for a reasonable time they were taken down and preserved with other public documents, so that they might be available for purposes of research. The Acta differed from the Annals (which were discontinued in 133 B.C.) in that only the greater and more important matters were given in the latter, while in the former things of less note were recorded. Their publication continued till the transference of the seat of the empire to Constantinople. There are no genuine fragments extant.

More post

Search Posts

Related post