The history of American newspapers is quite fascinating. Yes, the first-ever paper was published in 1690, but it had to close down after its first issue. It turns out that the publishers ran it without obtaining a license. The man behind it, Benjamin Harris, had to go to jail for it.
The newspaper was titled "Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick" and came out only in Boston. Although it was ill-fated, it was quite modern for its time. It was the first multi-page (only four) newspaper and featured topics like politics, crime, and even gossip and scandal. The last of the four pages was left blank so that readers could write in their piece of news and hand it in to be published in the next issue.
1690 was still British America times, so this and many subsequent newspapers that followed it were closely related to the British government. Although public sentiment was different, the papers avoided criticizing it. The next newspaper, The Boston News-Letter, survived after its initial release.
However, it was a tool of the colonial establishment. At the top of every issue, there was a phrase, "Published by Authority," just like in the "London Gazette." The format of this newspaper sort of set the tone for what papers in 18th-century America looked like. There was only one sheet of paper, with text written on both sides in two columns. At the end of the second page, readers could buy ads, but newspaper advertising became lucrative only in the 19th century.
In the beginning of the 19th century, newspaper circulation was in the thousands in America. Not everyone would read them, given that illiteracy was still quite common. As time went by, printing technology became more advanced, and the telegraph and the telephone allowed for quicker communication (editors and publishers communicated mainly by letters).
In the 1830s, "penny papers" started to pop up. To make newspapers available for the masses and the working class, publishers started selling cheap, mass-produced newspapers that cost only one penny. Some examples include The Boston Herald, the Philadelphia Public Ledger, and the Baltimore Sun. At first, they were only available in the big cities, but, with time, spread to smaller cities in the South and the West.
In the early 20th century, newspapers were almost the main source of news for all Americans. Except for maybe the radio, it was the only place people would find out about what was going on in the world. Alternative, or "underground," newspapers began publishing, with different interest groups wanting one that represented them, whether by trade, ethnicity, occupation, or religion. The "Village Voice" of Greenwich Village in New York was one of them, which began publishing in 1955. It was a place for artists and various creatives like Jonas Mekas and Linda Solomon.
Today, newspapers aren't really that popular. Since the 2000s, the number of newspaper publishers in the U.S. has reducedby more than half. In 2002, there 46,000 of them, and in 2022, only 22,000 were left. In the 2010s, many publications and newspapers moved online and retained a pretty solid viewership of more than 10 million readers. Since 2020, even online newspapers have been experiencing an increasingly significant decline.
