It seems news has been around since the dawn of time. I've included a brief outline to a few difference newspapers in world history. I've not gone through every single journal or chronicle from every nation known to man. I've included a few photos and links to a few archives. You can always search for more on your own via search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck, Yandex, etc. Newspapers and such may go back thousands of years.

There may be a difference between what might be news and what might be found in a history book or what have you in world history since the dawn of time. I wanted to quickly put together this outline as a starting point in trying to analyze the quality of the news which would be reported. I love history and I particularly am interested in seeing a contrast between FAKE NEWS and whatever that may be a bit more accurate and authentic and so on and so forth. The following will mention a few different examples from several different countries and empires and such throughout history. This is an incomplete rough draft. I feel like a project like this is never ending in some ways. This particular topic might be too generic to tackle thoroughly. I should probably come back and try to focus more so on just the 1900s in order to contrast fake news with more accurate news. After that, I might dare to go back and tackle the 1800s for example and so on and so forth. I think that might be the best way to go about all of this, to do it one part at a time. I may want to try to make a distinction between news and history books. So, I've not included history books in this post. I may choose to update this post in the future to add a more complete outline.

It looks like news would be shared in public places for thousands of years all around the world. I'm not exactly sure exactly how long or where. I can't say if news has always been spread around among people. I want to believe some people would spread news sometimes since the dawn of time. Some of those places where news would be spread would include bars, coffee houses in England, public baths and the marketplace which were also like public town-squares were people would gossip, spread rumors, etc. I wonder if art and comics can be considered news. If so, we could include cave drawings which may date back thousands of years or longer.

2400 BC

Organized Egyptian Courier Messenger Services may date back to 2400 BC to the days of Pharaoh and the ancient pyramids, we're talking over 4,000 years ago. The oldest surviving mail dates back to 255 BC, perhaps. Well, unless if we were to include the Bible or other books, scrolls, etc. But I'm not sure if the Bible counts or not. I guess it depends on the definition of news and what that means exactly. It depends on how generic or specific we want to regarding what should be included in what is considered to be THE NEWS be it FAKE NEWS or NOT FAKE NEWS or variations and combinations between the extremes of propaganda versus absolute objective truth and historical facts and eternal evidence and science and so on and so forth and things of that nature. Specifically regarding Egypt, their service may have been only there to help share news among the royals, government, military, etc, and not the general public, the citizens, the slaves, everyone else. This may have been the case to some degree in ancient history regarding probably most empires and countries and kingdoms and places around the world for the most part. It appears that most people or more people (percentage-wise) nowadays have access to news thanks mostly to the Internet more so than ever before in world history. I would think as far as we know, what we have now is better than anything we have ever had in the past outside of the possibility that there was a time the ancient would had Internet thousands of years ago or whatever the case might be. I'm not going to say that didn't happen. But as far as we know, this Internet Age we live in now since especially the 1990s. The rise of the Internet these past 30+ years has been a major factor and counter to state-sponsored fake-news and propaganda which was being spread via radio, television, cable, satellite, newspapers, magazines, books, newsletters, etc.

19th-century replica of Du Yu's 3rd-century AD annotated Annals.

722 BC

The Spring and Autumn Annals or Chunqiu is an ancient Chinese chronicle that has been one of the core Chinese classics since ancient times. The Annals is the official chronicle of the State of Lu, and covers a 241-year period from 722 to 481 BC.

131 BC

Rome had the Daily News or the Acta Diurna.

Middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, diplomats, merchants, and scholars would gather information and keep records about news that were relevant to them through journals, account books, and letters.

1600s

Were there newspapers in the 1600s?

1645

Post- och Inrikes Tidningar or PoIT (Swedish for "Post and Domestic Times") is the government newspaper and gazette of Sweden, and the country's official notification medium for announcements like bankruptcy declarations or auctions. The newspaper also carries advertising, the largest advertiser being the Swedish Patent and Registration Office.

1661

Merkuriusz Polski Ordynaryjny (The Polish Mercury Ordinary; original 17th-century Polish spelling: Merkuryusz Polski Ordynaryiny; full title: Merkuriusz Polski dzieje wszystkiego świata w sobie zamykający, dla informacji pospolitej: The Polish Mercury, Encompassing All the World's Affairs, for the Common Knowledge) was the first Polish newspaper (actually, a weekly), published from 1661, first in Kraków, then in Warsaw.

1663

Journalism of Early Modern Europe was composed originally by handwritten newsletters used to convey political, military, and economic news quickly and efficiently throughout Europe during the early modern era (1500-1700). They were often written anonymously and delivered through a complex system of couriers. German newspaper: Zeitungen. Italian: Avviso.