The History of News

&
INNOVATE LEAD
A4
The History of News
Print
2000 B.C.
540 B.C.
1450
1534
Phoenician
alphabet
Public library
in Athens
Gutenberg
Press
First press in
America
(Spanish
America)
Deseret News
1665
1704
Oxford Gazette First successful
(first EnglishAmerican
language
newspaper:
newspaper)
The Boston
News-Letter
Newspapers
DESERET NEWS, ThuRSDay, SEpTEmbER 2, 2010
1850
1867
First edition
of the
Deseret News
Deseret Evening
News daily
edition is
launched
1870
1846
1888
Number of George Eastman
newspapers
introduces the
published in the Kodak camera
U.S. is 5,091
Associated
Press founded
Broadcast
Radio
1899
1922
The first
Pioneering radio
photograph
broadcast heard
appears in the for 1,000 miles
Deseret News originates from
Deseret News
1886
Linotype
machine
introduced at
newspapers
1923
1911
Television
Newsreels
begin
(Continue into
1960s)
Iconoscope, the
first television
transmission
tube
patented
1836
1866
1877
1888
1920
Telegraph
patented
Transatlantic
cable allows
communication
across the
Atlantic
Thomas Edison
invents the
“talking
machine”
Heinrich Hertz
transmits
wireless sound
waves
First radio
stations in
U.S. and
Canada
Sources: Deseret News; Deseret News archives; “Through Our Eyes, 150
Years of History as Seen Through the Eyes of Writers and Editors of the
Deseret News”; “Timeline of the Newspaper Industry” by Mary Bellis; Hobbes’ Internet Timeline, Internet History, What is the Internet? and History
of Internet and WWW Pros Online; “A Brief History of Social Media” by Brett
Borders; Broadcasting Timeline Information Please® Database; “Television
History” by Mary Bellis
Quotes
“What is remarkable about
what is happening at the
Deseret News is that they
are becoming Exhibit A for
the future of news in this
country.”
Clayton M. Christensen
nationally recognized new-media leader
and Harvard Business School professor
“The Deseret News team
has showed courageous
leadership, not just to
make the difficult decisions around costs, but to
define a broader and more
digitally focused future.”
Mark Contreras
senior vice president of E.W. Scripps
and chairman of the Newspaper
Association of America
“Journalism is a noble
profession that is vital to a
free democracy. ... There’s
a lot of rhetoric about a
digital revolution in community journalism, but this
is one of the rare business
plans that supports it.”
Gordon Borrell
local media expert
“Changes in the industry
have forced some newspapers to fade or even
close. At the Deseret News,
we choose to lead and
innovate.”
Clark Gilbert
Deseret News CEO and president
Media revolutions
Print, broadcast and digital innovations changed news delivery, will define the future
By Sarah Jane Weaver
Deseret News
Major revolutions in the way people
share information have been relatively
rare compared to the recent upheaval
in the news industry today, with its
accelerating flow of new products like
the latest smart phones, iPads and
other mobile devices.
Ancient civilizations left messages
on the walls of caves, tablets and
parchment, which eventually led to
the first public library, in Athens in
540 B.C. It took nearly another 2,000
years before Johannes Gutenberg, a
German goldsmith, developed a way
to make news available to the masses.
Gutenberg ushered in the print
revolution in 1450, altering the way
people conceived of the world they
lived in. In 1620, English statesman
and philosopher Francis Bacon described the printed word as “changing the whole face and state of things
throughout the world.”
The next leap would be an audio/
visual one. In 1888, George Eastman
introduced the Kodak camera and
Heinrich Hertz transmitted wireless
sound waves. By 1911, newsreels
brought news to moviegoers, and in
1927, Philo Farnsworth transmitted
the first television image.
That broadcast revolution ushered
in an era in which people around the
globe watched on live television in
1969 as Neil Armstrong walked on
the moon.
The digital revolution wasn’t far behind. By the 1990s, information now
traveled the globe at 186,000 miles
an hour on the Internet to computers
and cell phones.
“News has been fundamentally
changed by innovation and technology,” Deseret News President and
CEO Clark Gilbert said. “There are
deseret news archives
a pressman checks copies of the deseret news coming off the presses at richards street sometime around 1940.
exciting and wonderful elements to
this because the Internet has expanded the reach of news and information
to a level never before possible. But
those same changes have altered the
fundamental business model of print
publishing.”
Gilbert noted that at a time when
the digital revolution ushers in vast
opportunities for news distribution,
many traditional newspapers are fading or even closing.
The Deseret News and deseretnews
.com have chosen a different path, he
said, one that will build on centuries
of news gathering and distribution:
“We choose to innovate and lead.”
email: sarah@desnews.com
The Deseret
News began
publishing
on June 15,
1850. Among
the changes
newspapers have
undergone over
the years are
adding color and
becoming smaller
to save paper. At
left, Deseret News
editions from 1850,
1963 and today.