Five Interesting Facts About the World

The Hidden Factoids of Newspapers by Shivam Patel

Hi! If you have read the ‘by’ section of the title, you are probably wondering why the name changed from the last few years. Let me introduce myself. My name is Shivam Patel, and I am a 6th grader here at GATE starting out on FIFAW at the Griffin Post. I love getting and displaying fun factoids, and I am sure these factoids will get better through the editions. Let’s get started with the first ever 2025-2026 FIFAW entry in the Griffin Post! Today’s topic: The hidden factoids of newspapers around the world!

Let’s start off with a little bit of history. Tracing back through the lineage of old – though still continued – newspapers, we find ourselves at Wiener Zeitung, the oldest daily newspaper that is still continued. This newspaper is based in Vienna (The name literally translates to ‘Vienna Newspaper), Austria. This old paper is thought to have been established in 1703 by Johann Baptist Sh Johann Baptist Schönwetter. Diving back further, we find another old relic, which is the Post- och Inrikes Tidningar, a Swedish newspaper started back in 1645 and is continued to this day, though switched to a continual digital format starting January 1st, 2007. A little tidbit: Post- och Inrikes Tidningar actually translates to ‘postal and domestic newspapers’ in its original language, Swedish. (Pictures descriptions: front: first issue of the Wiener Zeitung, released on August 8th, 1703. behind: fifteenth issue of Post- och Inrikes Tidningar, published on the 9th of April, 1645)

Continuing our spiel in Europe, we move to the UK, where a nostalgic tradition remembered by many shakes up curiosity in many young minds. The “Fish-&-Chips-served-in-newspapers” tradition goes back decades, though seeing its peak in the 1930s, has seen a recent decline. The dish Fish (or Cod) and Chips was originally wrapped in newspaper and regular paper layers, as this paper was said to be more absorbent than any other, and was ideal for soaking up the oil. More recently, this practice was discontinued, as it was found to be somewhat unhygienic. Newspaper also was found to be cheap and available, and also insulatory, keeping the dish rather warm inside the wrappings. It is said that instead of regular newspaper paper, people used printed newspapers, resulting in a rather inky taste in the food. Toxic mineral and lead inks that were being used posed a serious health risk to the users or consumers of the food. Surprisingly, restaurants are now printing food safe ink in a newspaper-like design onto the food safe paper that they use for this dish to create a more authentic feeling!

From food to feud, we find ourselves back further in time, all the way to the Civil War, where we come to the most inconspicuous part of the daily news: the advertisements. In the Civil War, confederate troops and regiments communicated with one another through messages in personal advertisement columns, where these newspapers, such as the Daily Herald, easily reached other generals and civilians who would then pass it on to higher commanding army officials. Interception was unlikely, as though the Daily Herald was mostly used for its widespread reach, there were small town weeklies, monthly news-magazines, and over 400 semi-major newsletters to choose from. The same practice of newspaper manipulation also occurs in the Ohioan regiments, and further north for the same reasons - easy though hard to pick through. Repeated and edited prints made this total substantially larger - 4 million prints!!! Going even further back to the civil war, we can see that newspapers have taken a major role in intelligence, as newspapers brought in from Britain and from British publishings can give great insight into the state and motives of the British side. (Picture description: The New York Herald clipping, dating to the Civil War.

We take ourselves back a little in history to the first ever comic in a newspaper, the successful Yellow Kid comic, first installed in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and later in the New York Journal. This extravagant yet simple comic, created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault. Here’s a little background on the ‘Yellow Kid’, or Mickey Dungan. He was an Irish tenement mischief maker, who came to New York. The comic itself is mostly of relatively slapstick humor, though also contains a great deal of social commentary. The comic is famous for being the namesake of the idea “yellow journalism”, the idea of stories that were made widespread for the pure purpose of selling newspapers, as was the case for the Yellow Kid comic – the strip originated out of a feud between the New York World and New York Journal, both installing the comic out of means of increased sales. (Picture Description: Mickey Duncan)

Another beloved part of the newspapers is the crossword, a puzzling yet delightful brain teaser that is especially appealing to many people. Though this treat mostly comes in 15x15 to 22x22 square grids, this is sometimes exceeded. The largest crossword in a newspaper is a special feature of the NYT newspaper called the Puzzle Mania, characterized by the gargantuan 50x50 grid with a whopping 700+ clues, up and down! The New York Times, an already famous newspaper, released the competition for this fascinating puzzle first in 2016, continuing the tradition with an annual Puzzle Mania, exclusively featuring the Cryptic Crossword, the famed crossword that was mentioned earlier. Puzzle Mania was originally created to bring revenue and to bring a new and exciting interruption to the regular NYT puzzles, though this feature has since taken over as a hallmark for many solvers - a treat that for some is just a little difficult to swallow!

GENERAL SOURCE:

https://www.yourframedarticle.com/blog/10-fun-facts-about-newspapers?srsltid=AfmBOoq5RwelSYzMgcR0ufA3ADB1Qkk9xiEv16lLNOSDnbWUgOwR_7wJ

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