First Newspapers

     The newspapers of today are very different from those of the past. There are many differences between how we receive our news and how people got it all those years ago. Newspapers of today are different in design because they are coloured and contain many different articles and related photographs. In the past, newspapers contained much less content and in most cases less reliable and more bias stories and articles. Also, the earliest newspapers did not contain photographs, but rather drawings. Today, as well as in written form, we can get any and news stories online making news much easier to access than in the past.

     I do not believe that the government should have as much power in relation the published news stories as they did the time of the earliest newspapers. Newspaper articles and stories were created in order to express our freedom of speech as well as our's and other's opinions on these events and narratives. If the government were to have the power to shut down a newspaper today, it would be equal to shutting down our freedom of speech which we have worked so hard to obtain over the centuries.
   
I believe that this comparison was made because of the blank page the author left for others to leave there own opinions, comments and stories. I do find this comparison somewhat surprising because you would not expect the use of “the first blog” format to have occurred over 300 years ago in the 1690's. Although I do find it a bit surprising, in a way it is not as well. During those times they did not have the internet to post their comments and opinions on a story they had read to be shared with others. Writing on this shared newspaper would be their form of stating their views and providing their own standings on a particular story or event.

     I believe that a newspaper can be critical of the government or an organization today and continue to prosper because they are not monitored in the same way they would have been in the past. Along with freedom of speech came freedom of press and publishing barriers, for the most part, have disappeared. This freedom allows journalist to provide stories and events to a paper that may bash or speak down an organization without the major backlash that was once a result.

      I was surprised to find out that the first Canadian newspaper was published in Halifax because the city is not only close, but part of the Maritimes where I am from. I originally thought that the first Canadian made newspaper would have be written in Ontario, specifically the city of Ottawa. I thought this because Ottawa is the capital city of Canada and you would think that something of this proportion would have been created in the country's capital.