The History of Modern Media Reporting

This paper will examine the role of print and broadcast media as it has changed and progressed. We will start in the ancient Roman times and progress to what the modern day media consists of; both in a world sense and here in the United States. This may be considered a broad subject, but as the paper progresses a cohesive timeline should be visible to the casual observer.

The origins of printed news media can be traced back to ancient Greece, the middle of the fourth century to be exact. At that time, news was spoken and Demosthenes portrayed his fellow Athenians as preoccupied with the exchange of news. He was quoted as saying “Thus we go about framing our several tales.” (Stephens 14) This was in reference to the daily gathering of what could be classified philosophs and the gossip they took part in.

This was common in other cultures as well. The ability to gossip is nothing new. This had been occurring for thousands of years and has been slowly refined to include finite details of daily life. More than thirteen hundred years before the inventing of the printing press there were newssheets posted in the forums of ancient Rome are said to have devoted space to the two favorite topics of the time, crime and divorce. This was between 59 B.C. and A.D. 222.

There was even a satire of the newssheets that is in Petronius’ Satyricon. It featured reports on a fire and the crucifixion of a slave. It is this type of sensationalism that fuels the fire of many journalists. “Enlighten me now, O Muses tenants of Olympian homes, for you are goddesses, inside on everything, know everything. But we mortals hear only the news, and know nothing at all.” This is a quote from the Iliad that is keenly in tune with what occurs on this planet. It addresses both the general ignorance that can and does occur when human hands try to interpret events they do not understand, and the complexities of trying to make that interpretation.

Word of mouth is exactly how most news circulated before the inventing of the printing press. The common phrase we use in our everyday vernacular of “What’s new” has been around since the dawn of language itself. This is partly because humans are extremely inquisitive creatures with an insatiable appetite for information, especially new information.