16
JANUARY, 2018
William Caxton might have introduced the world’s first printing press in 1476 in Westminster, but it took until 1702 for the world’s first daily paper to surface – The Daily Courant.
The Daily Courant
Excerpts (1702; 1714)
Judging by the way some newspapers have gone since that date, you might argue this is not something to be celebrated. However the first daily paper was a remarkable thing and brought almost ‘instant’ news to the masses for the first time. Until now snippets of information had travelled at the speed of horse and the speed of wandering folk songs. A daily newspaper really heralded a new information era.
The Daily Courant blazed a trail and by 1720 there where 12 London newspapers and 24 provincial titles.