Drafts of History: an open call to all newspaper aficionados

Newspapers are the world; “Newspapers in words made famous by The Washington Post in the 1940s – form the ‘first rough draft of history’” writes the team behind the ambitious project that demands our attention aka Contextual Alternate's “Drafts of history: the world in newspapers on a single day (10 March 1881/2020).”

“Newspapers are also a bundle of contradictions, mayflies of the print world – short-lived, cheap, ubiquitous, and unreliable documents that are both instruments and recipients of a wide variety of use/abuse. Moving from drafts, advertisements, stories, and news to rags, raddi, wrappers, and pulp, in a matter of days, the printed newspaper has a particularly complex existence as a temporal and informational artefact. Thousands of newspapers around the world have ceased to operate over the last decade, and thousands more are on the brink of closure as ways of reporting and transmitting information change. Moreover, it is evident that we are at a juncture where not only the viability of the newspaper as a tangible document is under question, but when the free press as an institution is itself under sustained attack.”

“Now, as a myriad small and local newspapers across the world continue to teeter on the edge, and as the Newseum in Washington DC – one of the largest monuments to newspapers, journalism, and news reporting – closes its doors in December 2019, we are initiating the ‘Drafts of history’ project, extending over the next two years. This project comprises a range of activities that focus on the complex, contradictory, deeply contested, and truly multifarious global history of the printed newspaper.”

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And now the interesting part. The first in this series of events Drafts of history is essentially “a call for participation and ‘collective’ action” as the team hopes hope to collect physical/paper copies from around the world in order “to create a snapshot of the newspaper as a printed artefact in our tumultuous times.”

As for the date the 10th of March “connects to the second part of the team's project: creating a historical, comparative snapshot of the world in newspapers on a single day.”

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“The first instance of such a striking collection that we know of happens to be for 10 March 1881 – a treasure trove of newspapers from across the world, which we will be exhibiting in the coming year. We are looking to bring together March 1881 with a ‘first draft of history’ for March 2020. And, of course, to lay the foundations for future drafts of history in 2031 and 2081 – if we still have printed newspapers then – marking 150- and 200-year retrospectives” writes Contextual Alternate, the independent publishing initiative that aims to “generate critical conversations on visual and material cultures across geographical, professional, and disciplinary boundaries.”

This invitation to all lovers of print can be reached here.

Calling all newspaper-lovers/print-aficionados. Sign up for our project ‘Drafts of history’ to create a snapshot of the world in newspapers on a single day. Details: https://t.co/H3VClys9qC @SHARPorg @BL_IndianPrint @BLAsia_Africa @SOASLibrary @CPJAfrica @pressfreedom @BNArchive pic.twitter.com/R0IobgyBJu

— Contextual Alternate (@ContextualAlt) January 21, 2020