• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, March 7, 2005

Happy 400th, Newspapers!

Timothy Balding, the WAN Director General, commenting on a recent release from the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany, which houses the world's first printing press, said "Today, more than a billion people a day, across the planet, read a daily newspaper in print - a figure, not incidentally, that has risen nearly five per cent in the last five years. So, we're not only 400 years old - or rather young - but we are globally enjoying great health and can presumably look forward to the next century or so, at least, with optimism".

The World Association of Newspapers has accepted evidence produced by one of the world's leading printing museums that 2005 marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of the first newspaper in print.

Martin Welke, founder of the German Newspaper Museum, and 'father' of the discovery together with Professor Jean Pierre Kintz, a Strasbourg historian, told WAN that the publisher of 'Relation' was a certain Johann Carolus, who earned his living at the turn of the 17th century by producing hand-written newsletters, sold to rich subscribers at very high prices, reproducing news sent to him by a network of paid correspondents.

"In 1604, he bought a complete printing shop from the widow of a famous printer," said Dr Welke. "In the summer of 1605 he switched to printing his ... newspapers, because it took him 'too much time copying by hand'". Carolus also calculated that he could earn a lot more money "by printing a higher circulation for a lower price".

In October that year, Carolus wrote a petition to the Strasbourg city council asking for "protection against reprints by other printers". And the rest (Copyright law) is history, says the release.