History of journalism in the United Kingdom

The Oxford Gazette was printed in 1665 by Muddiman in the middle of the turmoil of the Great Plague of London and was, strictly speaking, the first periodical to meet all the qualifications of a true newspaper.

After the Revolution, the new monarch William III, who had been installed by Parliament, was wary of public opinion and did not try to interfere with the burgeoning press.

As the concept of a parliamentary opposition became an acceptable (rather than treasonable) norm, newspapers and editors began to adopt critical and partisan stances and they soon became an important force in the political and social affairs of the country.

[10] By the beginning of the eighteenth century, Britain was an increasingly stable and prosperous country with an expanding empire, technological progress in industry and agriculture and burgeoning trade and commerce.

A new upper middle class consisting of merchants, traders, entrepreneurs and bankers was rapidly emerging - educated, literate and increasingly willing to enter the political discussion and participate in the governance of the country.

The values expressed in this new press were overwhelmingly consistent with the bourgeois middle class - an emphasis on the importance of property rights, religious toleration and intellectual freedom in contrast to the restrictions prevalent in France and other nations.

[14] Journalism in the first half of the 18th century produced many great writers such as Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Johnson.

Their material was entertaining and informative and was met with an insatiable demand from ordinary citizens of the middle class, who were beginning to participate in the flow of ideas and news.

The newspaper strictly restricted itself to the publication of news and facts without opinion pieces, and was able to avoid political interference through raising revenue by selling advertising space in its columns.

It presented Whiggish views and created guidelines for middle-class manners, while instructing "these Gentlemen, for the most part being Persons of strong Zeal, and weak Intellects...what to think.

[20] When the Scot John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, came to head the government in 1762, Wilkes started a radical weekly publication, The North Briton, to attack him, using an anti-Scottish tone.

He was charged with seditious libel over attacks on George III's speech endorsing the Paris Peace Treaty of 1763 at the opening of Parliament on 23 April 1763.

When he was finally released from prison in 1770 he campaigned for increased freedom of the press; specifically he defended the right of publishers to print reports of Parliamentary debates.

The war with France was under way and the government wanted to suppress negative rumours and damaging information, so it tightened censorship and raised taxes so that few people could afford to buy a copy.

It was chiefly Milner Gibson and Richard Cobden who advocated the case in parliament to first reduce in 1836 and in 1855 totally repeal of the tax on newspapers.

After the reduction of the stamp tax in 1836 from four pence to one penny, the circulation of English newspapers rose from 39,000,000 to 122,000,000 by 1854;[25] a trend further exacerbated by technological improvements in transportation and communication combined with growing literacy.

The Daily Telegraph, which appeared on 29 June 1855 and soon sold for 1 d. Sixteen new major provincials papers were founded, and older titles enlarge their scope.

Sensationalism, emphasizing dramatic stories, large headlines, and an emotional writing style was introduced by W. T. Stead, the editor of The Pall Mall Gazette (1883-1889).

[33] His innovations as editor of the Gazette included incorporating maps and diagrams into a newspaper for the first time, breaking up longer articles with eye-catching subheadings and blending his own opinions with those of the people he interviewed.

[36] Matthew Arnold, the leading critic of the day, declared in 1887 that the New Journalism, "is full of ability, novelty, variety, sensation, sympathy, generous instincts."

"[37] Bringing all the factors together, a decisive transformation away from a high cost, low circulation elite newspaper world in the 1880s was the brainchild of Alfred Harmsworth (1865-1922).

[38] The new formula was to maximize the readership using sensationalism, features, illustrations, and advertisements pitched to women for department stores offering the latest fashions.

[41] Under Barnes and his successor in 1841, John Thadeus Delane, the influence of The Times rose to great heights, especially in politics and in the financial district (the City of London).

[42] Due to Barnes's influential support for Catholic Emancipation in Ireland, his colleague Lord Lyndhurst described him as "the most powerful man in the country".

It was also the first properly national newspaper, using the new steam trains to deliver copies to the rapidly growing concentrations of urban populations across the UK.

W. H. Russell, the paper's correspondent with the army in the Crimean War of 1853–1856, wrote immensely influential dispatches; for the first time the public could read about the reality of warfare.

In particular, on September 20, 1854, Russell wrote a missive about one battle that highlighted the surgeons' "humane barbarity" and the lack of ambulance care for wounded troops.

[48] The 20th-century "popular press" had its origins in the street ballads, penny novels, and illustrated weeklies which preceded by many years the passage of the Elementary Education Act 1870.

"[55] Other powerful editors included C. P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian, James Louis Garvin of The Observer and Henry William Massingham of the highly influential weekly magazine of opinion, The Nation.

He cites one poll that found the trustworthiness of journalists on The Sun, Mirror and Daily Star fell far below government ministers and estate agents.