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Before the invention of news papers, in the early 1500's, religious writings were published in broadsheet form within Europe. By the 1530's, millions of these religious broadsheets were in circulation.
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The Licensing Act, or the 'Act for Preventing the frequent Abuses in Printing Seditious, Treasonable and Unlicensed Books and Pamphlets; and for the Regulating of Printing and Printing Presses' was introduced in 1662
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The first bill in parliament advocating a tax on newspapers was proposed in 1711. The duty eventually imposed in 1712 was a halfpenny on papers of half a sheet or less and a penny on newspapers that ranged from half a sheet to a single sheet in size.
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In 1834 the stamp duty was abolished on pamphlets; and in 1836 newspaper duty was reduced to 1d., from 4d., by Thomas Spring Rice as Chancellor of the Exchequer. On the other hand, the penalties for evasion of the duties were made more serious, and the definition of periodicals in the scope of the duty was broadened.
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The precursor to the PCC was the Press Council, a voluntary press organisation founded in 1953 with the aim of maintaining high standards of ethics in journalism. However, in the late 1980s, several newspapers breached these standards and others were unsatisfied with the effectiveness of the council.
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All in all, 1999 was the golden age of newspapers in Britain when many papers found their footholds and soon buying a newspaper was as much a part of someone's morning as their trip to work.
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Was a controversy involving News of the World and other British newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Employees were accused of engaging in phone hacking, police bribery and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories. Investigations in 2005-2007 shown that they only hacked celebrities phones, but in July 2011 it was revealed that the phones of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, relatives of dead British soldiers and victims of the London bombings had also been hacked.
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National newspaper circulation in the UK has been declining for years and fell below one million copies in 2020, even among leading brands like The Daily Mail and The Sun