OCR Text |
Show Trouble maker ! He is Johannes Gutenberg, movable type. the man who invented Gutenberg had a hunch it would make a printers work easier if type could be used over and over again in various combinations. Before his time, printers carved entire texts on large blocks of wood. Gutenberg, experimenting, sawed up one of these blocks into individual letter - units. His idea worked. It made printing a great deal easier. But the ruckus it was to cause would have astounded this humble and devout German craftsman. For movable type not only simplified printing, it made possible for the first time the distribution of ideas to large numbers of people. Under the interchange of ideas, serfs became restless, national states developed, and feudalism crumbled. Revolutionary trouble-maker- s such as Voltaire, Tom Paine, and a group of uncouth pamphleteers in England took ideas directly to the people. They found print was the icjeal my, tQiexpre.s.s complex thoughts. .It was true then, and it is5 true today. ' Printing made possible modern newspapers. Good newspapers always make trouble. Theyre trouble to officials who want to carry on the publics business in secret. Theyre trouble to anyone with entrenched authority. Theyre often troublesome to those whose private lives become suddenly caught up in the public busi , ness. But the work that newspapers do has become a basic link in our political process. Thats something for you to think about during National Newspaper Week Oct. 6 12, 1968. -- . NEWSPAPERS...THE INDEPENDENT MEDIUM A C i NEWSPAPER WEEK 1969 |