“The Pen is so Noble and Excellent an Instrument”: How the Medieval Merchants and Renaissance Diplomats Invented the Newswriting Style

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay argues that the modern newswriting tradition can be traced back to the networks of Italian medieval merchants and Renaissance diplomats. As of the late 1200s, merchant letters reveal an increasing tendency to report important political and military events for the sake of business interests. The emergence of permanent embassies in Italy in the mid-1400s gave a further impetus to the development of newswriting techniques, since one of the pivotal tasks of the Renaissance ambassadors was to keep their superiors informed about evolving situations in the foreign courts. As a result, both merchants and diplomats had to break with the rigid medieval letter-writing tradition in order to develop new rhetorical strategies capable of capturing the complex realities they observed. This study analyzes some of the key elements of this emerging reporting style such as the dateline, the lead, basic story structures, but also the early notions of objectivity that in their own way fostered the techniques capable of conveying direct speech. In conclusion, this essay points out several manuals for Renaissance diplomats and their secretaries that already clearly formulated the six journalistic Ws and also pondered the ability of news-writers to manipulate their audiences.