The History of NewspapersToday people can use newspapers to find out many things. You can use the newspaper to check sports scores, get the day's news, read "feel good" stories, or even find out your horoscope. It hasn't always been this way. From the "Acta Diurna", reported in the ancient Roman Empire, to the New York Times, newspapers have come a long way. This report will outline how far newspapers have come since their inception. Before literacy was commonplace in societies, town criers announced the town's news to the townspeople. These town criers used oratory skills to spread the news at crossroads and in the market. Messengers would be tasked with reporting back to the city after battles to report a victory or defeat to the citizens. As people became more civilized and language and literacy developed, news delivered through speech began to be written down. In 59 BC, Julius Caesar published the "Acta Diurana". It was a daily newspaper that was printed and hung in the Roman Forum. This gazette reported news from Rome, such as military campaigns, executions and trials. The Chinese also started government-produced news programs called taipo. While the "Acta" were news for the entire people of Rome, the taipo were only for government officials until around 618 AD. Those were the only types of printed news known until 1456, when Gutenburg invented movable type. Soon after the printing press was invented, there was a written account of a tournament held in Rome around 1470. There were letters written by Christopher Columbus circulating in Barcelona before Columbus returned from Spain in 1493. For about one hundred and thirty years there they were pamphlets, sheets of paper and books printed and distributed with news events. Although these were written reports of news using movable type, they were not considered newspapers. Modern newspapers as we know them were born at the end of the 1500s. In 1566 the Venetian newspapers began. This publication was regularly distributed throughout Venice. There was information about wars and politics in Italy and also in the rest of Europe. They were printed weekly. This set the stage for other newspapers to follow the format outlined in those documents. They employed the style of using a date line... in the center of the paper... as they had never done before, a diffusion war was inevitable. . As the circulation wars intensified, newspapers competed to get the best news first. News agencies were born. Edward W. Scripps and William Randolph Hearst developed news services. Scripps founded the Associated Press in 1907, and Hearst founded the International News Service in 1909. As the country and its settlers realized their manifest destiny, news services became very important. important for national news in city newspapers. From that point on, not many events happened that really shaped the world of newspapers. The age of the Internet and computers was the first thing that changed newspapers in a long time. Now with the Internet, the world is at everyone's fingertips. Never before have people had access to all the information they have now. It will be very interesting to see what is done next. Bibliography Black, Jay; Bryant, Jennings; Thompson, Susan. Introduction to MediaCommunication.The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. 1998. pp.113-147.Stephens, Mitchell. "History of Newspapers". For Collier's Encyclopedia. http://www.nyu.edu/classes/stephens/Collier's%20page.htm