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Lesson#14
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EMERGENCE OF PRINT MEDIA AROUND THE WOR
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EMERGENCE OF PRINT MEDIA AROUND THE WORLD
As if the world was just waiting a breakthrough in the printing
process, people from advance
countries started exploiting the new invention to vent their
feeling on both religious as well as secular
matters.
Next hundred years saw a change the world had perhaps not
witnessed in the previous thousand years.
More opinions were brought forward, the role of gatekeepers in
the world of information was reduced
considerably and new idea-exchange programs started getting very
popular all over.
Though it was not the way it appears today, the pioneer work in
print as a medium to spread information
was started first by irregular pamphleteering but soon assumed a
very formal form of regular publications
during which time tens of thousands of magazines, books,
newspapers and newsletters change the
landscape in urban markets across the world.
A glance to early publications
1500s ---- Newssheets appear in Venice, Italy
1605 ----- Relations, France
1690 ----- Public Occurrences, first U.S. Newspaper
1704 ----- John Campbell publishes the
Boston News-Letter
1721 ----- The New-England Courant, first printed in 1721,
landed publisher James Franklin in jail.
1733 ----- Peter Zenger is put in jail for
New York Weekly
content, but wins case against New York for
seditious libel
1798 ----- Alien and Sedition Acts forbid criticism of key
government officials. Repealed in 1800.
1830s ---- Penny press introduces era of mass communication
1864 ----- Newspapers start using telegraph to transmit news
1848 ----- Associated Press founded
1800s ---- Linotype machines speed up typesetting by making
possible the automatic casting of entire lines
of type
1890s ---- Period of yellow journalism. This is followed by era
of Jazz Journalism.
Print comes to South Asia
For at least one hundred years people in subcontinent remained
unaware of the printing
technology. They, however, had some idea of printed material
when ships would come from UK and bring
some newspapers and magazines generally for the Englishmen
serving in subcontinent.
In the subcontinent the print media surfaced because of the
foreign rulers. India did not know about
printing or mass communication by the middle of 18th
century. Since the influence of the
English rulers was
more in the South India, most early papers also appeared in the
southern cities before the print medium
came to western and northern parts.
Colonial journalism
The history of media in united India is colored by the colonial
experience. William Bolts, an exemployee
of the British East India Company attempted to start the first
newspaper in India in 1776. Bolts
had to beat a retreat under the disapproving gaze of the Court
of Directors of the Company.
Bengal
The Hickey's Bengal Gazette or the Calcutta General Advertiser
was started by James Augustus
Hickey in 1780 and is regarded as the first regular publication
from the Indian soil. The
Gazette, a two-sheet
newspaper, specialized in writing on the private lives of the
Sahibs of the Company. He dared even to
mount scurrilous attacks on the Governor-General, Warren
Hastings', wife, which soon landed him in hot
waters.
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Hickey was sentenced to a 4 months jail term and Rs.500 fine,
which did not deter him. After a bitter attack
on the Governor-General and the Chief Justice, Hickey was
sentenced to one year in prison and fined
Rs.5000, which finally drove him to penury. These were the first
tentative steps of journalism in India.
Calcutta
B. Messink and Peter Reed were pliant publishers of the
India Gazette,
unlike their infamous
predecessor. The colonial establishment started the
Calcutta Gazette.
It was followed by another private
initiative the
Bengal Journal. The
Oriental Magazine of Calcutta Amusement,
a monthly magazine made it four
weekly newspapers and one monthly magazine published from
Calcutta, now Kolkata.
Madras (Chennai)
The Madras
Courier was started in 1785 in the
southern stronghold of Madras, which is now called
Chennai. Richard Johnson, its founder, was a government printer.
Madras got its second newspaper when,
in 1791, Hugh Boyd, who was the editor of the
Courier
quit and founded the
Hurkaru.
Tragically for the paper, it ceased publication when Boyd died
within a year of its founding. It was only in
1795 that competitors to the
Courier
emerged with the founding of the
Madras Gazette
followed by the
India
Herald. The latter was
an "unauthorised" publication, which led to the deportation of its founder
Humphreys. The
Madras Courier was designated the
purveyor of official information in the Presidency.
In 1878, The Hindu was founded, and played a vital role in
promoting the cause of Indian independence
from the colonial yoke. Its founder, Kasturi Ranga Iyengar, was
a lawyer, and his son, K Srinivasan assumed
editorship of this pioneering newspaper during for the first
half of the 20th century. Today this paper enjoys
the highest circulation in South India, and is among the top
five nationally.
Bombay
Bombay, now Mumbai, surprisingly was a late starter -
The Bombay Herald
came into existence in
1789. Significantly, a year later a paper called the
Courier
started carrying advertisements in Gujarati. The
first
media merger of sorts: The
Bombay Gazette,
which was started in 1791, merged with the
Bombay Herald
the
following year. Like the
Madras Courier,
this new entity was recognized as the publication to carry "official
notifications and advertisements".
'A Chronicle of Media and the State', by Jeebesh Bagchi in the
Sarai Reader 2001
is a handy timeline on the
role of the state in the development of media in India for more
than a century. Bagchi divides the timeline
into three 'ages'. The Age of Formulation, which starts with the
Indian Telegraph Act in 1885 and ends with
the Report of the Sub-Committee on Communication, National
Planning Committee in 1948.
Urdu Press
In 1822 the Persian weekly Jam-e-Jahan Numa first time published
in Urdu. Some time it publishes
in Urdu, some time in Persian and some time in both the
languages. During the earlier days of journalism
newspapers were either weeklies or biweeklies, none of them was
a daily. On January 14, 1850 Munshi
Harsukh Rai started weekly Kohinoor. With a circulation of only
350 it was the largest circulated newspaper
of that time. The circulation of other newspapers on that time
was only 100 to 200.
Urdu Guide was the first daily newspaper, which was started by
Maulvi Kabeeruddin from Kolkata in 1858.
In the very same year as a second daily Roznamcha-e-Punjab
started from Lahore. As a first Urdu daily of
Bihar, Dini Bihar started in 1876 from Arah district. Zameendar,
which was the best newspaper of that
time, was started in 1903 from Lahore. It was the first
newspaper, which used the news from erstwhile news
agencies. This newspaper highly supported the freedom struggle.
At that time the circulation of Zameendar
was 30,000. Before Zameendar, in 1884 Munshi Mehar Baksh started
a morning (Naseem-e-Subah) and an
evening newspaper (Sham-e-Wisal). Maulvi Saiful Haq started the
daily Rahbar-e-Hind from Lahore in
1885. In 1902 Maulvi Sanaullah Khan started the weekly Watan
which regularly published for 33 years.
Maulana Muhammed Ali Jauhar started Naqueeb-e-Hamdard in 1912.
Later it called only Hamdard. In the
very same year Maulana Abul Kalam Azad started Al-Hilal. After
Zameendar it was the largest circulated
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newspaper .On March 20, 1919 Mahashai Krishn started Partap.
Partap was the first newspaper, which
started supplements.
Newspapers and movement for independence
Before the freedom following newspapers and magazines were
started to support the freedom
struggle. Khilafat, Siasat, Ujala, Taj, Roznama-e-Hind, Ajmal,
Hilal, Milap, Partap, Tej, Qaumi Awaz, Jung,
Anjam, Inqualab, Nawa-e-Waqt, Hindustan, Aftab, Jumhuriat,
Iqbal, Asr-e-Jadeed, Azad-e-Hind, Sandesh,
Vakeel, Khidmat, Musalman, Azad, Paswan Weer Bharat and
Al-Jamiath. Jawaharlal Nehru started Qaumi
Awaz from Lucknow in 1945. Later it also started from Patna and
Delhi. This time it is publishing only
from Delhi and is in very poor condition. After Indias freedom
Hafiz Ali Khan Bahadur started weekly
Daur-e-Jadeed. Jamat-e-Islami Hind started weekly Dawat. This
time it is publishing regularly as Bi-weekly.
Dawat has a particular readership and it is very popular among
its readers due to its views on current issues.
Maulana Abdul Waheed Siddiqui started Nai Duniya, which is still
publishing under the editorship of his
son Shahid Siddiqui. This time it is the famous Urdu weekly in
India. Sahara Group Had started monthly
Rashtriya Sahara but later it became daily. This time it is the
most popular Urdu daily of North India
publishing simultaneously from Delhi, Lucknow and Gorakhpur.
Recently this group has launched a weekly
Aalmi Sahara.
Press in the US today
The print media include all newspapers, newsletters, booklets,
pamphlets, magazines, and other
printed publications, especially those that sell advertising
space as a means of raising revenue.
In the United States, at present, there are 1745 daily and 7602
weekly newspapers, and 64,000 magazines.
Most print media, with the exception of magazines, are local,
although there are some national newspapers
and trade publications that have become quite successful.
Magazines, on the other hand, have always been
national, although there is a trend today toward localization
and specialization. Also included in print media
category are directories, church and school newspapers and
yearbooks, and programs at theater
presentations and sporting events.
Employment
Around 1, 20, 500 people were working in the print industry only
after one hundred years of the
first appearance of the US publication in 1690. The size kept on
increasing as did many other sections of
specialization. About over two million people directly or
indirectly are getting their living from the print
media at present.
Specialization
The media in print which earlier took the responsibility of
spreading information only, has matured
over the decades and now providing healthy services in
entertainment, education and welfare of mankind.
The business of advertising now knows no limits in financial and
employment size and leading to more
avenues of jobs. |
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