The meaning and utilisation of news in Ottoman society beginning from 1862 and ending with the bankruptcy of the empire in 1875 is a fascinating object of political and social history. This chapter focuses on news reports and articles in the privately owned Tasvir-i Efkar, İbret, Hadika and İstikbal that dealt with deepening economic and financial problems since they claimed to reflect the diverse voices among Ottoman publics as well as being the dissident voices of their time.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, one of the most favoured ways of criticising the policies of the central government (the Porte) was through the publication of editorial articles and news reports. While the state-owned Takvim-i Vekayi (est. 1831) published primarily imperial edicts and reports on the promotions and travels of high-ranking bureaucrats, these first private newspapers of the empire provided news reports on current events and subjects like public health, such as the spread of plague; urban affairs, such as police reports on burglaries and stabbings; fires in Istanbul; in addition to reports on war and social and political upheavals. After 1862, when private newspapers were required to publish official announcements, newspaper editors frequently wrote their own comments below the announcements on the following day and did not hesitate to criticise the government.

Private newspapers rather than official publications were instrumental in the development of journalism as a profession and critical news production. Mild and bitter critiques in news reports and articles came to define the parameters of political opposition to the financial policies of the Porte. In these initial critiques, journalists vocalised the demands and concerns of their publics on financial policy and the distribution of wealth in the empire. In this articulation of public problems and demands, the conceptualisation of news changed over time as the content and layout of the papers developed. In this process, I argue that the form and structure of periodical news and commentaries undermined the production of state information. Private newspapers eroded the knowledge production of the state as the readers gained access to unofficial news reports written in accessible language. This erosion was partly shaped by the periodicity of the newspapers since readers now received continual news reports on their society from a private rather than state perspective.