Ryan Singletary, age 15, of Missoula, Mt., for his question:
WHEN DID JOURNALISM ORIGINATE?
Journalism is the gathering by reporters, evaluating by editors and disseminating through various media and facts of current interest. The earliest known journalistic effort was "Acts Diurna," orr "Daily Events," of ancient Rome.
In the first century B.C., Julius Caesar ordered handwritten news bulletins labeled "Acts Diurna" posted each day in the Forum.
The first printed newspaper, produced from wood blocks, appeared in Peking in the seventh or eighth century A.D. Then in the middle of the 15th century, wider and faster dissemination of news was made possible by the invention in Europe of movable type.
At first newspapers consisted of one sheet and dealt with a single event. Gradually a more complex product evolved.
England, Germany and the Netherlands produced newsletters of varying sizes in the 16th and 17th centuries but it was in France that the magazine or literary journal developed late in the 17th century.
By the early 18th century politicians had begun to realize the enormous potential of newspapers in shaping public opinion. Consequently the journalism of the period was largely political in nature. Journalism was regarded as an adjunct of politics and each political faction had its newspaper.
It was during this period that the great English journalists flourished, among them writers such as Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele. Also at this time the long and continuous struggle for freedom of the press began.
In the English colonies of Amerca, the first newspaper was "Publick Occurrences, Both Foreign and Domestick," published in Boston in 1690. It was suppressed and its editor, Benjamin Harris, was imprisoned after having produced only four issues.
Journalism in the 19th century was affected by the industrial revolution and spread of public education. Newly literate masses demanded reading matter. New machinery made it possible to produce this inexpensively and in quantity.
In the United States, Joseph Pulitzer, Edward Wyllis Scripps and William Randolph Hearst established newspapers appealing to the growing populations of the big cities.
Wire services, exploiting the invention of the telegraph, facilitated rapid gathering and dissemination of news throughout the world. These services included Reuters, based in England, and the Associated Press and United Press (later United Press International) in the United States.
At the same time, new popular magazines were made possible by new technologies, improved transportation, low postal rates and the emergence of national brands of consumer goods that required national media in which to advertise.
Two new forms of news media appeared early in the 20th century: newsreels and radio. And television became commercially viable in the 1950s.