History of Print Media

The History of Printing starts as early as 3500 BCE, when the Persian and Mesopotamian civilizations used cylinder seals to certify documents written in clay. Other early forms include block seals, pottery imprints and cloth printing. Woodblock printing on paper originated in China around 200 CE. It led to the development of movable type in the eleventh century and the spread of book production in East Asia. Woodblock printing was also used in Europe, but it was in the fifteenth century that European printers combined movable type and alphabetic scripts to create an economical book publishing industry.

 This industry enabled the communication of ideas and sharing of knowledge on an unprecedented scale. Alongside the development of text printing, new and lower-cost methods of image reproduction were developed, including lithography, screen printing and photocopying.

The large-scale production of books did not begin in the Orient until the Ming Dynasty in the 13th century (Tsien, 1985). However, western historians give the credit to German Johannes Gutenburg, who built a metal movable type printing press in 1439, which had a more efficient method of printing books and pamphlets.

1439 – German Johannes Gutenberg build a metal movable type printing press

1605 – The first newspaper in the modern sense was published by German Johann Carlous

        1609 – Another newspaper was started in Germany called “File”

-         Print Media began in Philippines

1811 – First locally produced newspaper was published “ Del Superior Governor”

1846 – “La Esperanza” was released, a paper written for the local Spanish community

1848 – To rival the “La Esperanza” they released “Diario de Manila”

1865 – First article written about the disaster in the Philippines on the typhoon in September 1865

1889 - “La Solidaridad” was released. It is the nationalistic newspaper that served as the mouthpiece of the revolutionary movement.

1900 – The Manila Daily Bulletin was founded by an American for shipping journal

1908 – The first newspaper magazine was founded, “The Philippine Free Press”

1945-1972 – This era was called “The Golden Age of Philippines Journalism” by the scholars.

1972 – Former President Marcos ordered to take over and control all private owned newspaper

1990 – The Manila Bulletin was set up by the foreigners.