ABSTRACT
It is undeniable: students who come to a school of journalism tend to be much more
attuned to seconds and minutes than to centuries, much more interested in today than in,
say, 25 September 1690. That was, of course, the publication date of the first known
newspaper in the English-American colonies. But smallpox and ague no longer threaten
Boston, New England has given up its invasion of Canada, the lurid rumors about the King
of France and his daughter-in-law have died down, and anyway, Publick Occurrences is not
hiring.
