История письма и чтения. Асафова Г.К. - 91 стр.

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UNIT 15

THE WORLD IN SO MANY WORDS

How the first newspapers were published

One chilly November evening in1588, a village tavern in the heart of rural

Somerset was busier than usual. Many people were speculating about the outcome

of the battle between the English fleet and Philip II’s Armada. One gentleman in

the crowd was a wealthy lawyer who read aloud a newsletter he had received by

courier from London that morning.

When he confirmed the good news that the English had in fact defeated Spain, the

villagers burst into cheers – their fears of an invasion were over.

Gossip in the cathedral

Only the wealthy few could afford to enjoy the benefit of such a news

service in the 16

and17th centuries. For an annual fee of around £5, subscribers

employed intelligencers – private news writers – to keep them informed of the

latest city gossip while they were at their county retreats. The intelligencers

gathered their information at the meeting places in the city: the nave of St Paul’s

Cathedral was one of the main haunts, hence the later establishment of printing

offices in nearby Fleet Street. Once they had pieced together the most important

stories of the day, they returned to their offices, where they dictated their reports to

a group of clerks who wrote out the news by hand. Depending on the

circumstances, a subscriber could receive as many as three newsletters from the

same intelligencer in a week. Others had to rely on sporadic newsletters, often

religious in nature, which focused on battles, or natural disasters, such as fires and

floods, and were illustrated with vivid woodcuts.