Journalism is the distribution of knowledge that the reader did not know before. It can come in many shapes in today’s modern day, whether it's online on a little blog or printed in a major newspaper. We rely on it for many things, like knowing (roughly) what the weather will be like for the next week, or what part of the world has a problem with the United States for the ump-teenth time. In fact, there is so much news and information in the world that we often seem to take it for granted in today's world where the information you want is in a small gray box that goes with you everywhere. Long ago, however, news about the world or even your town wasn’t always so handy. Even in countries where journalism is censored and heavily regulated, they (sometimes) have more information today than people did about 100 years ago about what happened just 10 miles away.

Before the advent of the newspaper, there were two major kinds of periodical news publications: the handwritten news sheet and single item news publications. These existed simultaneously. The Roman Empire published Acta Diurna ("Daily Acts"), or government announcement bulletins, around 59 BC, as ordered by Julius Caesar. They were carved in metal or stone and posted in public places. In China, early government-produced news sheets, called "tipao," were commonly used among court officials during the late Han dynasty (2nd and 3rd centuries AD). So not only was there very little news published at all in the ancient world, but anything that was “published” was written by the government and only what they thought was important. The only news available to the common person that wasn't passed on by word of mouth was the major events, which may or may not even affect the people hearing about it.

In 1556, the government of Venice first published the monthly Notizie scritte ("Written Notices") which cost one gazetta, a Venetian coin of the time, the name of which eventually came to mean "newspaper." These “avvisi” were handwritten newsletters and used to convey political, military, and economic news quickly and efficiently throughout Europe, more specifically Italy, during the early modern era (1500-1800). These shared some characteristics of newspapers though usually are not considered true newspapers. However, these papers were not typically meant for the public, and only published works about certain topics or issues.

Single event news publications were printed in the broadsheet format, which was often posted. These publications also appeared as pamphlets and small booklets (for longer narratives, often written in a letter format), often containing woodcut illustrations. Literacy rates were low in comparison to today, and these news publications were often read aloud, and in large groups. Eventually, the news circulated between newsletters through well-established channels around 17th century Europe. Antwerp, Belgium was the hub of two networks, one linking France, Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands, and the other linking Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Favorite topics included wars, military affairs, diplomacy, court business, and gossip. After 1600 the national governments in France and England began printing official newsletters. In 1622 the first English-language weekly magazine, "A current of General News" was published and distributed in England, in an 8- to 24-page quarto format.

Around this time,we begin to get to the format for the modern newspaper. However, about 200-300 years later, a new medium for the news was taking shape, one that would help change the way news is delivered across the entire world: the radio. News on the radio really began to pick up during the 1920’s and 1930’s. It was what the well-off and “important” people began to do, since they could afford a radio and thus get up-to-the-hour news, although it quickly became cheap enough for the ordinary man to afford. It was quite the fad for those who could afford it during that time. Additionally, more often than not a centralized place like a bar or library would have a radio that would be for public use. News on the radio would become just as strong and as commonplace as news obtained from a newspaper, and go hand-in-hand with it for quite a while.

Things would not go so well for this monopoly the two mediums held on the news for very long, however. During the 1940’s and 1950’s, the television became more widely accessible to average citizens, especially in America, which had just bounced back from the Great Depression and whose economy was booming. The news on the television was not very different from the news one received either on the radio or in the newspaper, but according to studies done from around that time, people would prefer the television’s version of the news since they could see a live and real human being on the screen, which would help them make a “personal” connection and make them more inclined to watch.

Finally, in today’s modern age, we have everyone's favorite pastime, the internet. Truthfully, the internet is essentially just a more high-tech newspaper. The video or audio news that is available online is not dramatically different or better than the news we have on the television. But the accessibility to news or ideas published in other places, places we normally wouldn’t be and may not hear about, is now readily available to everyone in the world with a wi-fi connection. Here in America, I can now hear all the the anti-US propaganda coming from the Middle East, while also reading about the Civil War going on in Ukraine, while watching a 19 minute long documentary in the history of the Congo. While the content of the news hasn’t changed much, the amount of information has increased exponentially, and will continue to do so. It’s quite the far cry from the monthly papers distributed by the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago.