It was on this day in 1791 that the first edition of the British newspaper The Observer was published. Its the oldest Sunday paper in the world. The publisher, a man named W.S. Bourne, thought the newspaper would make him rich. But instead it sent him spiraling into more than a thousand pounds of debt. And after just a few years, he tried to sell off the paper. First, he tried to convince some anti-government organizations to buy the newspaper. But they didnt want it, so instead he turned around and tried to sell it to the British government. But they didnt want to buy it either. However, the British government - then under the reign of King George III, whod recently lost the Revolutionary War and 13 colonies in America - did decide to subsidize the newspaper, in exchange for having a say in what sorts of news stories went into it. The paper spent a lot of the 1800s filled with government propaganda and sensational gossip, but with new editors, it gradually turned toward serious content. In the mid-20th century, news stories replaced advertisements on the front page, and the paper became owned by a trust. It employed a number of famous writers as journalists, including George Orwell, Vita Sackville-West, and Conor Cruise OBrien. In 1993, it was acquired by The Guardian, a daily newspaper. In 2005, it became the first newspaper to offer podcasts.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 12:01:15 +0000
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