Chapter 1018 - Spread of News (2/2)

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After dealing with Lightning’s matters, Roland asked Wendy to stay behind.

“I intend to add a department in the City Hall.” He went straight to the point. “In addition to dealing with emergencies like today, it’d also give the public a credible channel for discussion.”

“You mean… it will be mainly used to announce messages?” asked Wendy.

“Yes, this department will be called the Ministry of Public Relations.” Roland nodded and said, “However, the way it spreads news will be somewhat different—Firstly, if something is not an emergency, it’ll no longer be announced through the bulletin board in the Central Square. Secondly, its content will not be limited to Neverwinter, some novelty events from other lands will also be included.”

“If we don’t publicize in the square, how do we let others know about it?” Nightingale pursed her lips.

Roland picked up a scrap of paper from the table and unfolded it in front of them. “We need a brand new method of spreading information—and that’s the newspaper.”

In fact, setting up bulletin boards in the central square and sending people to repeatedly announce the news was done only because Roland had no other choice back then. The literacy rate of people in that era was extremely low. In such circumstances, word of mouth had become the only way to promote a decree.

However, with the rapid expansion of the urban population and the domains, this method could no longer keep up with the actual needs of the subjects—In the past, gathering 3,000 people would be enough to have the news spread to the whole city. But now, at least 80,000 to 90,000 people would be needed to cover the rapidly increasing population.

This not only exceeded the capacity of the central square, but the extraction of such a huge crowd also resulted in the suspension of Neverwinter’s industrial operations.

Barov’s report made him realize that the so-called “if you don’t occupy publicity locations, then enemies will occupy it” was not just talk. If there were no reliable channel for discussion, various rumors would spread in the pub. These rumors would continue to brew, and it would be too late to stop them once they had spread.

Now that the education for primary education had already been carried out for two and a half years, the materials available to Neverwinter had become much richer than in previous years. The introduction of newspapers as a means of communication was then of course inevitable.

If the first step was the foundation for running newspapers, then the second step would be to ensure the efficiency of the channels that would issue these newspapers.

What does an official newspaper need? A large circulation and reporting of current content that would generate discussion. Therefore Neverwinter needed to have a large amount of paper and efficient printing technology.

The problem of paper could be easily solved. In the central and eastern developed commercial cities, paper products had already spread to the middle and upper-class families. He even remembered Lucia’s parents, who have passed away, used to run a paper mill in Valencia. According to the statistics of the City Hall, there were many migrated craftsmen from the East who had mastered papermaking. As long as those craftsmen were gathered together, the production capacity could be expanded, and they would soon meet the needs of large-scale distribution.

For Neverwinter, any problem that could be solved with money was not considered a problem.

The printing skill was even more straightforward. The movable metal type plus drum reels were all tried and tested technologies. The ink could be provided by Darkcloud which was theoretically even easier than papermaking.

But it was unnecessary to explain all these details to Wendy. Putting aside the technical aspects, newspapers still had to be written by people, so the most important thing was to find people to gather and record the news.

He asked Wendy to stay behind as he wanted her to pick out a few suitable candidates—whether it was the Witch Union or the Sleeping Spell, she understood the abilities of her sisters the most.

“I roughly understand what you mean…” After listening to Roland’s explanation, Wendy pondered for a moment. “So you need a witch to get involved in this matter. She’d need to discover the incident when it’s happening and also run faster than anyone else so that the message can be sent as soon as possible to the publicity department?”

“Ahem, she doesn’t have to run fast.” He almost choked on his own saliva. “As long as she knows where the incident is happening, she could dispatch someone else to send the message.”

“In other words, she would be a core member of the Ministry of Public Relations? Well… I do have a suitable candidate in mind.” Wendy laughed and said, “Your Majesty, what do you think… about Honey?”