To accommodate a growing circle of readers, the editors simplified the language in which the newspaper was written, gradually abandoning the more formal style which they had previously shared with the official Gazette.
[3] The first privately owned Turkish newspaper was Ceride-i Havadis (Journal of News), published in 1840 by an Englishman named William N. Churchill.
The content was unusually rich for its time, for it contained details of Western politics, financial news, material about controversial events such as the French Revolution, and items of cultural interest such as reports of new technology that had not yet been introduced into the Ottoman Empire.
In fact, its writers were all members of the translation bureau of the Sublime Porte, who directed communication with foreign countries and followed the foreign press.After Churchill’s death in 1846 he was succeeded by his son Alfred Black who went to Sevastopol during the Crimean War to cover the fighting for English newspapers, and his reports were also published in special supplements by the Ceride-i Havadis.
[2] When the Sultan of Turkey visited England in July 1867, Alfred Black Churchill attended as the official historiographer.