Prof. (Dr.) Nutan K. Resutra
Aaj ki taaza khabar…………
Mohalley ki ladki mohalley ke ladkey ke saath bhaag gayee!
Aaj ki taaza khabar.
This is how the street hawkers used to sell daily newspaper in the by-gone days. I remember that when I was posted at Kathua in early eighties, a hawker at Samba would enter every passenger bus selling his papers in a rhythmical manner saying Akhbaar jiiiiiiiiii akhbaar! He would drag the word ji in such a manner it seemed as if he was giving respect to the newspaper itself, hypnotising passengers to buy newspaper from him. And but natural, that particular hawker had the highest sales per day!
The first newspaper Editor, Printer and Publisher in the world was none other than the great Roman King Julius Caesar. But this newspaper was on a series of white tablets known as albums. They presented the daily doings called as The Acta Diurna, giving in detail the news of the City and the Empire. The people pushed and jostled to read them on daily basis as there was no circulation of that news -tablets! This happened in 60 BC.
More than six hundred years later, metropolitan newspapers appeared in China. People called them Gazettes which now stands for any type of newspaper. Actually, this word gazette is derived from gazetta which was a small Italian coin. The value of this coin was enough to buy a paper; hence the word gazette.
Contrary to general perception, it is Germany that is called the birthplace of newspaper where in 1502, the first newspaper christened News Zeytung was published- on paper.
America, the then British Colony was slow to come to the age of newspaper printing. Benjamin Harris was the first American to publish a monthly periodical in 1690 from Boston titled Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. In the very first issue, Benjamin was so bold that he censored the French King for immorality and also criticized the Mohawk Indians for latter’s brutality towards French prisoners. As Mohawk Indians were friends of the British, the colonial rulers, this made them very uneasy. And the result was Benjamin Harris had to shut down his paper just after his first issue as he had no licence to publish! But this later on paved way for other newspapers to come to light.
The history of newspapers cannot be complete if we do not talk of two things; Yellow Journalism and Printers’ Devil. The former flourished in New York City in 1890’s with the clash of two newspaper Titans Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst for increase in their circulation. Both poached each other’s reporters, editors and tried to give the most sensational stories, caring a fig about reputation of people. The Battle of Papers went to such an extent that Hearst published trickled up stories of Spanish atrocities in Cuba that resulted in American- Spanish War! Of course, his circulation did rise meteorically! He went to such an extent that he sent his artist Remington to Cuba to furnish pictures of atrocities. Remington telegraphed: there is no war here. Hearst replied: You send me pictures, I will furnish War!
Yellow journalism in America suffered a setback when Hearst wrote in his paper against the then President William Mc Kinley: “If bad institutions and bad men can be got rid of only by killing, then the killing must be done.” This indeed led to the killing of American President McKinley. As hue and cry rose, Hearst renamed his newspaper as the American Journal. And that’s all.
His competitor Pulitzer also has an interesting story. Because of his poor eye sight and frail physique, he failed to join Austro-Hungarian Army, Napoleon Army and British Indian Army. He joined Westliche Post as a reporter. As he had very little funds, he bought that very newspaper on credit. Later on, he owned two newspapers, the other one being the Dispatch. He merged the two and called it the Post Dispatch. He also bought the New York World starting sensationalism that led to clash with Hearst. He always suffered from health problems. His contribution in journalism is his founding of prestigious Columbia School of Journalism. The Great depression forced him to close down New York World, but the Post Dispatch survived.
There are no two opinions that the gospel of newspaper reporting was given by John Bogart of the New York Sun when he told his young reporter: “When a dog bites a man, that’s not news because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.” And from here we also find the use of the term ‘bite’ by reporters!
Our discussion on newspaper cannot come to a logical end if we do not talk of the Printer’s Devil. For centuries, the art of printing newspapers remained a hand-craft activity. It is but natural that mistakes did happen while getting newspapers printed. I vividly remember when a newspaper in the seventies erroneously printed Thief Minister instead of Chief Minister. A famous incident was reported in Whatts app when a typist in Army also made same mistake when he addressed Chief of Army Staff as Thief of Army Staff. The General taking that mistake in the most light manner, advised the young typist not to disclose this fact to outsiders! Similarly, when the late Prime Minister of India Mrs. Gandhi came to Srinagar on her last visit, a local newspaper hurriedly made this headlines: Mrs. Gandi goes on shopping spree! Of course, all these errors were attributed to the Printer’s Devil.
But then the question remains: why call these mistakes as the printer’s devil? If we go back in history, we find that in every newspaper printing press, there was engaged one helper known as the Printer’s Devil who was obviously blamed for printing mistakes! An interesting explanation of this is found in the story of celebrated printer Aldus Manutius who had employed a black African as a helper in Venice. In those days, there was hardly anyone who would employ a Black person in Europe. The presence of that African helper by Manutius made people feel uneasy, who began to look upon him as an evil spirit. And in order to make people feel relaxed, he made the following announcement in his Newspaper: “I, Aldus Manutius, printer to the Doge and the Holy Church, have this day made public exposure of the Printer’s Devil. All who think he is not flesh and blood(which implied that he is a spirit) are invited to come and pinch him.”
Since that day, all printing mistakes are attributed to the Printer’s Devil. Even today when we have computerized – printing, mistakes do happen. Reason? To err is human.
To conclude, I would quote what Napoleon had once said: “Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets!”
( The author is former Principal, Govt. Degree College Udhampur).
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