The world's only handwritten newspaper, and the oldest emergency call service | #60
Also, a journey from Lenin to Lennon
“If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.” - Mark Twain apparently.
How does your day start? Ours, with a cup of coffee and newspaper in hand.
Did you know that in 1948, the Hindu was among the very few newspapers not to carry the death of Mahatma Gandhi on its front page? The reason - the front page was then reserved for ads. The Hindu then changed their policy, but have now gone back to the norm of ads on the front page.
This week’s newsletter is about newspapers.
Things we learnt this week
The first Kannada language newspaper was started by a…. German. Rev. Hermann Friedrich Moegling reached the shores of Karnataka with the aim of spreading the word of Jesus. But he fell in love with Kannada. After studying the classics for over 7 years, he published the first newspaper Mangaluru Samachara. The first edition had this as its aim “It is to prevent the spread of rumours and untruthful things, and also to make available genuine information to the people at large, we have brought out this paper duly priced.” Ich bin ein Berliner, in Kannada.
A London based pharmaceutical company called Burroughs Wellcome and Co, used the word tabloid to describe the medicines they had compressed to a pill format. The word was used for anything that was compressed to an easily absorbed format. Thus was born Tabloid journalism, a truly com’pressed’ form of journalism.
One of the greatest inventors of our times was Thomas Alva Edison. Born to a poor family, his first job was as a newspaper hawker on the Grand Trunk Road to Detroit. In the baggage car, he kept a printing press and published the Grand Trunk Herald, the first newspaper to be printed on a train. A fire stopped his journalistic pursuits and made him choose other career paths. Safe to say Edison liked to keep up with the Times.
And finally, the world’s ONLY handwritten newspaper was established in Chennai in 1927 and is still going strong. Read the fascinating story of ‘The Musalman’. The paper employs calligraphers, called katibs, who painstakingly write out each news item on to the broadsheet using calligraphy pens. Lovely
From IWTK, with love
About 84 years ago, we had the introduction of emergency telephone numbers. It was introduced after 5 women were killed due to a fire.
Start a story with Lenin and end it with Lennon (10 marks)
Only in India
Infrastructure projects inaugurations in our country get delayed due to the unavailability of a politician to take all the credit. But Delhi’s sitting MLA Shiv Charan Goel took that to a new level, by inaugurating a speed breaker. If he had a phobia of speed breakers, he got over it.
Quiz Announcement
Bhasha Talkies is a first-of-its-kind series of regional language quizzes in 5 different languages! Join us this Sunday for a Kannada Talkies Quiz hosted by star QMs Meghavi HM and our superstar panelists - Noted comedian Sonu Venugopal and legendary quizzer Thejaswi Udupa.
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❤️ IWTK