Johann Carolus

Johann Carolus (26 March 1575 − 15 August 1634) was a German publisher of the first newspaper, called Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (English: Account of all distinguished and commemorable stories).

Carolus published the German-language newspaper in Strasbourg, which had the status of a free imperial city in the Holy Roman Empire.

[3] Because of these professions, especially his job as scribe, he held good relationships to postmen and traders, what helped him later to create the Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien in 1605.

The Carolus petition discovered in the Strasbourg Municipal Archive during the 1980s[4] may be regarded as the birth certificate of the newspaper: Whereas I have hitherto been in receipt of the weekly news advice [handwritten news reports] and, in recompense for some of the expenses incurred yearly, have informed yourselves every week regarding an annual allowance; Since, however, the copying has been slow and has necessarily taken much time, and since, moreover, I have recently purchased at a high and costly price the former printing workshop of the late Thomas Jobin and placed and installed the same in my house at no little expense, albeit only for the sake of gaining time, and since for several weeks, and now for the twelfth occasion, I have set, printed and published the said advice in my printing workshop, likewise not without much effort, inasmuch as on each occasion I have had to remove the formes from the presses …"[5]Soon the Relation was followed by other periodicals, such as, the Avisa Relation oder Zeitung.

By the same definition no German, English, French, or Italian weekly or daily news publications from the first half of the seventeenth century could be considered "newspapers" either.