The word “NEWS” means North,
East, West and South. It tells about its importance that it is coming from
‘everywhere’. The original sense of news was ‘new things’. The English word
"news" was plural of the word “new” which in Middle English was corresponding to
the word newes like the French nouvelles and the German neues. Similar
developments are found in the Slavic languages the Czech and Slovaknoviny (from
nový, "new"), the cognate Polish nowiny and Russian novosti and in the Celtic
languages the Welsh newyddion (from newydd) and the Cornish nowodhow (from
nowydh). Before 14th century, English speakers typically used the word
“tidings”. This is long obsolete. Since the 15th century it has been used to
mean tidings the report of recent events, new occurrences as a subject or report
or talk.
Before the invention of newspapers in the early 17th century, official
government bulletins andedicts were circulated at times in some centralized
empires.
The first documented use of an organized courier service for the diffusion of
written documents is in Egypt, where Pharaohs used couriers for the diffusion of
their decrees in the territory of the State (2400 BC). This practice almost
certainly has roots in the much older practice of oral messaging and may have
been built on a pre-existing infrastructure. In Ancient Rome, Act Diurna, or
government announcement bulletins, were made public by Julius Caesar. They were
carved in metal or stone and posted in public places.
In China, early government-produced news sheets, called tipao, circulated among
court officials during the late Han dynasty (second and third centuries AD).
Between 713 and 734, the Kaiyuan Za Bao ("Bulletin of the Court") of the Chinese
Tang Dynasty published government news; it was handwritten on silk and read by
government officials. In 1582 there was the first reference to privately
published newssheets in Beijing, during the late Ming Dynasty.
In Early modern Europe, increased cross-border interaction created a rising need
for information which was met by concise handwritten newssheets. In 1556, the
government of Venice first published the monthly Notizie scritte, which cost one
gazetta. These avvisi were handwritten newsletters and used to convey political,
military, and economic news quickly and efficiently to Italian cities
(1500–1700) sharing some characteristics of newspapers though usually not
considered true newspapers. Due to low literacy rates, news was at times
disseminated by town criers.
The oldest news agency is the Agence France-Presse (AFP). It was founded in 1835
by a Parisian translator and advertising agent, Charles-Louis Havas as Agence
Havas.