Ottoman Newsmedia

The first Turkish newspaper, the Takvim-i Vekai (Calendar of Events), a sort of bulletin, was published by the government in 1831 initially issued weekly for a while and continued with an uneven schedule. Besides Turkish it was also published in Arabic, Greek, French and Armenian. Named and established by the Sultan Mahmud the Second. it's Takvim-i Amire printers were located at a mansion in Beyazıt near Bab-ı Seraskeri/War ministry (today University of İstanbul ) It's editor was Esad Efendi.
The first private Ottoman paper by an Englishman[1] was the Ceride-i Havadis (1840-1865).
Tercüman-ı Ahval |21 October 1860 The first privately run Ottoman newspaper. A small format 4 pager by Agah Efendi, initially published on Sundays. The paper moved to a thrice weekly pattern with the April 22, 1861 issue 25 (Sunday, Tuesday. Thursday) and later in competition with Ceride-i Havadis to five days a week. Priced at 40 para (1 kuruş) it was printed at the Bahçekapı location, now occupied by Dördüncü Vakıf Hanı and was available at the tobacconist located at the first floor.
The paper suffered the first ever Ottoman censor for two weeks during May 1860 due to a critical editorial of the school system, possibly by Ziya Paşa and ceased publication voluntarily after 792 issues on March 11, 1866. With editorials by Şinasi (until issue 24), Ahmed Vefik Paşa, Ziya Paşa and Refik Bey, the paper also serialized Şinasi's Şair Evlenmesi /The poet's Marriage ( 1860) considered to be the first play written in Turkish. This paper was
followed by Tasvir-i Efkar and he number of periodical publications in İstanbul alone reached 113 between 1867-1878.

Mavi Boncuk |

First issue of Ceride-i Havadis

[1] William Churchill, an Englishman affiliated with the Tory Party went to Constantinople in 1832, where he worked for the British embassy as a merchant and as a newspaper correspondent, particularly for the Morning Herald. In 1840, he founded the first private Turkish-language newspaper in the Ottoman Empire, Ceride-i Havadis. This broke the monopoly of the Ottoman state's official paper. Churchill's lively coverage of the Crimean War (1854 - 1856) attracted a new audience to newspaper reading. Ceride-i Havadis was published irregularly, roughly every one or two weeks, until 1860, when it began daily publication. The paper closed when Churchill died in 1864, although his son Alfred revived it for one year.

Bibliography: Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 3d edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.