Incoming newspapers

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Incoming Newspapers 1650, No. 9
New incoming news of war and world deals 1660, No. 1

The Incoming Newspapers appeared regularly six times a week from July 1, 1650 and are therefore currently the oldest known daily newspaper in the world. It is very likely that they were printed, published and published in Leipzig by the printer and bookseller Timotheus Ritzsch (1614–1678).

History of the newspaper up to 1652

As early as the 16th century , so-called handwritten or printed Newe Zeytungen appeared in the German-speaking countries , irregularly published papers on current and predominantly political events, often biased by the editors . In the linguistic usage at the time, the term newspaper was to be equated with news . These can also be proven in Leipzig up to the 1630s, for example by Johann Albrecht Mintzel (who worked there between 1625 and 1641) or the scribe Moritz Pörner, who was even granted the sole privilege of periodically producing newspapers in Leipzig from 1633 onwards by a resolution passed by the Electorate of Saxony . Only the titles Incoming Weekly Newspapers and Ordinary Weekly Newspapers , which are likely to be attributed to Pörner, are verifiable .

Ritzsch himself was most likely to publish Newe Zeytungen . For example, there are editions from 1631 that reported from Leipzig on events in Magdeburg . The final abbreviation LZ. also appeared later in a different typographical form in the Incoming Newspapers .

Officially, the production and distribution of the mostly handwritten newspapers until then was in the hands of the respective municipal postmasters and their clerks ; from 1634, following objections, the government of Electoral Saxony initially banned the reproduction of the latest news .

During the Thirty Years' War the Swedes allowed the publication of printed newspapers from 1643 at the latest. Timotheus Ritzsch was already printing and distributing the weekly newspaper in Leipzig from April 1643, which was published under Swedish control and which appeared four to five times a week from 1644, but was not yet a daily newspaper in the current sense. Ritzsch only made this leap from 1650, when he published his paper, which he now called Incoming Newspapers , regularly six times a week. A year earlier he had been given the sole privilege of Leipzig by the Electoral Saxon government to "print and sell ordinary newspapers in and outside of Germany".

The earliest surviving copies of the Incoming Newspapers (Nos. 6–9, 11–13, 15–33, 41–46, 48–83 from 1650) are in the original in the Royal Library in Stockholm . There is no clear printer, title or editor's note in the surviving editions of the Incoming Newspapers ; since 1963, on the basis of as yet unrefuted evidence, it has been assumed that they come with a high degree of probability from Leipzig.

Each issue had four pages in the format of approximately 13.5 by 17 cm. The edition at that time should not have been more than 200 copies. Incoming newspapers were set in metal letters and printed by hand on a wooden printing press .

Successor to Incoming Newspapers

In 1652 Ritzsch's privilege was challenged again by the Leipzig postmaster and two newspaper writers. A comparison was made: from June of that year, the L. Incoming Ordinary and Post Newspapers were published as the first successor to the Incoming Newspapers until the expiry of the privilege in August 1659 . While Ritzsch probably took over the editorial part of the production, the postmaster Christoph Mühlbach acted in a position that today can best be compared to an editor, but without having any influence on the content of the newspaper. The two town clerks Moritz Pörner and Georg Kormat involved were allowed to distribute a certain number of newspaper copies on their own account. According to the currently known received editions, the L. Incoming Ordinary and Post newspapers appeared four times a week. In the years from 1659 onwards, too, there were repeated disputes between Ritzsch and the city postmasters and newspaper writers regarding the right to be able to print newspapers alone.

From January 1, 1660, the new incoming news of war and world dealings , for which Ritzsch was solely responsible , appeared, and was regarded as the first worldwide daily newspaper until 1963. Ritzsch's privilege finally expired in 1671, and for a long time the successors to his periodical (from then on again initially published by the Leipzig Post Office) had a kind of monopoly in Leipzig as the only daily newspaper. From January 1831, the important Leipzig BG Teubner Verlag printed the newspaper. Only in the course of the 19th century did competing products appear, which quickly gained popularity and distribution. At the end of 1918 the last edition of the Leipziger Zeitung appeared , at that time the official journal of the Royal District Court and the Royal District Court of Leipzig and the Royal Administrative Authority of Leipzig .

Incoming newspapers and successors (chronological overview)

  • Incoming newspapers (1650-1652)
  • L. Incoming Ordinary and Post Newspapers (1652–1659)
  • New incoming news of war and world deals (1660–1671)
  • Leipziger Post- und Ordinar-Zeitung (1672–1691)
  • Historical account of those in the Churf. Saxon. OberPostAmpt to Leipzig incoming world events and other memorable things (1692–1694)
  • Leipzig Post and Ordinary Newspapers (1695–1710)
  • Leipzig Post Newspapers (1711–1734)
  • Leipzig newspapers (1734–1809)
  • Leipziger Zeitung (1810-1918)

Incoming newspapers and successors (in each case the head of the newspaper)

literature

  • Leipziger Zeitung (1860), No. 1 from January 1st, p. 1.
  • Else Hauff: Die 'Einkommenden Zeitung' from 1650. A contribution to the history of the daily newspaper , in: Gazette. International journal for mass communications studies 9 (1963), pp. 227-235.
  • Karl Schottenloher: leaflet and newspaper. A guide through the printed daily literature. Volume 1: From the beginning to 1848 , Schmidt, Berlin 1922. Newly published, introduced and supplemented by Johannes Binkowski. Munich, Klinkhardt and Biermann 1985, ISBN 3-781-40228-2 .
  • Arnulf Kutsch, Johannes Weber: 350 years of daily newspaper, research and documents. Bremen 2002. ISBN 3-934686-06-0 .
  • Mark Lehmstedt: The world's first daily newspaper , in: Leipziger Blätter 37 (2000), ISSN  0943-0547 , pp. 52-54.
  • Jürgen Schlimper: "Printing newspapers is an important work". On the roots of the Leipzig newspapers in the first half of the 17th century , in: newspaper printing is an important work. 350 years of the daily press in Leipzig (Leipzig calendar. Special volume 2000.3), Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2000, ISBN 3-934565-61-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry on Mintzel in the Digital Historical Library Erfurt / Gotha (last accessed: June 6, 2014)
  2. ^ Library entry "Incoming Newspapers". In: Swedish union catalog LIBRIS. Retrieved May 18, 2018 .