Why was London the inevitable starting point for news publication in serial form?

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        History of Journalism        

Why was London the inevitable starting point for news publication in serial form?

Fleet Street is the area in London that runs from Temple Bar eastwards to Ludgate Circus. It includes the Strand, Blackfriars Road, and Farringdon Street. London, especially Fleet Street, is traditionally the centre of British journalism. In the 1640s it was the starting point for news publication in serial form, when newsbooks were first developed here. Although newsbooks and other news publications had been published before the 1640s, these had only implicitly been serials. The periodicity of early news publications pre-1640 was irregular. They appeared at roughly weekly intervals, whenever there was enough news to fill them. The first effort to produce a serial publication was made by Humphrey Blunden, who produced ‘A True Divernall of the Last Weeks Passages in Parliament’. This marked a turning point in news publication as editions started to be numbered and be published at a regular frequency for the first time. These innovations were followed by other publishers and marked the beginning of the serial press. After the appearance of the first serial newsbook in November 1641, there was a rapid expansion of the serial press. By 1645 fourteen newsbooks in serial form were on sale, and it is estimated that over 20,000 serial publications in various forms were published between 1640 and 1660. All the serial publications were London based.

There were many factors which led to London being the inevitable starting point for news publication in serial form. There were economic, historical, and legal factors, although most of them were interrelated.

There were many economic or capitalist factors, which are also linked to London’s importance as Britain’s major city. Fleet Street and London as a whole was the ideal place for the press to be based in market terms. Frank sums this up in ‘The Beginning of the English Newspaper’: “It was only in the city that enough people, interest and news existed to justify printing a newspaper.”

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Since newsbooks and other serial news publications were established primarily to make capital: “from the early printing presses, the mass media have developed as commercial concerns organised around capitalist methods, primarily motivated by the making of profit”, it was inevitable that their starting point was the place in the country where the highest profits could be earned. London had the highest literate population, there was a demand from businesses based here for news, and it was the political, religious and legal centre.

London had the highest audience in Britain for newsbooks, and publishers would want to market their ...

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