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Newspaper The origins of newspapers can be found in ancient Rome, where government announcement where made by writing on bulletins made of stone and similarly in China where hand written government publications date back the second century AD. The invention of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century started and era of news letters which circled mainly between merchants and carried new relevant to trade. Newspapers published for the public regularly started in Western Europe at the end of the 17th century and became more widely spread through the 18th century. The first daily newspaper, 'The Daily Courant' was published in 1702 in London. The American revaluation contributed to the growth in the numbers of newspapers in northern America and with the birth of the U.S.A. they continued to flourish though these newspapers often did not have very high standards when it came to accuracy and authenticity. By the middle of the 19th century newspapers became the most prominent form of spreading information. Dou to their influence and importants the time period between 1820 and the 1920 became known as the 'Golden age' of the printed media. This era came to an end with the coming of radios. Newspapers were forced to make use of their advantages over the broadcasted media, namely the availability if space in order to compete with the cheap and widely available radio alternative. In the 1940 the newspapers were forced to deal with the coming of the television and although it did not wipe out the newspapers, their sales dropped over the continuation of the century by a third.

From their creation, newspaper were often used as to promote ideas and causes, often those that were banned by the government. This phenomenon climaxed during world war two when virtually every cont

news video and Newspapers come in different shapes and sizes, the two common sizes being Broadsheets and Tabloids. Broadsheet is a large format, usually around 75 cm x 60 cm and was invented in Britain in 1712 when newspapers were taxed according to the number of sheets. Today broadsheets are generally affiliated with the more intellectual papers, using their size to give the reader more information on each subject. Tabloids are smaller, usually around 43 cm x 28 cm and are usually affiliated with more sensational newspapers. The difference is best seen on the front page. While Tabloids usually have one big colorful headline, Broadsheets will usually have several smaller headlines. In the past years, several newspapers especially in the UK have switched from the broadsheet format to the tabloid format without changing the contents of the paper. The reason for the change was to make the papers easier to read especially for commuters on public transportation. These papers were labeled 'Compact' to differentiate them from the less respected tabloids.

The success of a news paper can be measured by the number of papers distributed a day, a figure know as 'Circulation'. This figure differs from the number of copies sold as some copies are handed out for free and the number of readers is estimated as higher than both under the assumption that most copies will be read by more than one person. Circulation helps set advertising rates and is often monitored by independent bodies in order to insure that advertiser actually reach the amount of readers they are promised.

One of the world most famous news papers is the New York Times. The New York Times was founded in 1851 under the name 'The New York Daily Times' and was sold for the price of one penny. In 1857 the paper changed its name to 'The New York Times'. Today the New York Times sells over 1,000,000 copies on week day and over 1,400,000 on weekends.

Today, newspapers in developed counties are having a hard time facing up to the alternatives of radio, television and Internet. The sales of these newspapers are dropping and consequently so are income from advertising. In developing counties on the other hand, the sales of newspapers are on the rise due to the growth in literacy and the middle class and a variety of other reasons.

The foundation of Newspapers on Israel can be found in Jewish newspapers in Europe, parallel to the beginning of general newspapers. These news papers were published from the 17th century in Jewish communities and in 1856 the first Hebrew newspaper was published in Europe. During the 1860 several Hebrew newspapers were published in Israel with little success and it wasn’t until Eliezer Ben Yehuda, the reviver of the Hebrew languge started publishing his independent newspaper that Hebrew newspapers started becoming popular in Israel. Post world was one, several new newspapers were published, the first was the still well known 'Haartez' which was published by the British Army followed by several politically affiliated newspapers. The struggle of the morning newspapers against the evening newspapers, the prominent one amongst them 'Yediot Acharonot' (Latest News) was fierce. After the founding of the Israeli state in 1948 several other news papers were started but the only one to succeed was 'Maariv'. Most of the political newspapers disappeared with the founding of the state after they lost a lot of their relevance and the public chose to read newspapers that dealt with more than just politics. From its foundation and the 1970 'Maariv' was the most widely published newspaper in Israel. In the 1970s 'Yediot' took over the race and from then until today is still the most widely spread newspaper with 174,000 copies on week days and 350,000 and weekends. The 'Haartez' newspaper is the oldest surviving newspaper and today 73,000 newspapers on week days and 97,000 on weekends. Aside from the three big papers, Israel also has a successful financial newspaper called 'Globus' that's published in the evenings, several religious affiliated newspapers, a variety of local newspapers and several newspapers in other languages such as Arabic, English and Russian.

With the coming of the internet and the taking over of the media scene all major papers built internet websites. The realation between the newspaper and the website varies. 'Yediot' and 'Maariv' have websites that are separate from the newspaper system but still share some of the materials where as 'Haaretz' and 'Globus' web sites' are directly connected to the newspaper with the exception that news is published on the web site immediately and only the next day in the newspapers.