My answer applies only to Europe. It is hard to define "making a living"--e.g. in the 1400s European businessmen circulated manuscript news to business connections to facilitate commerce; journalism here is an element of, but not all of, making a living. Early 'professional journalists' (the terminology is anachronistic) were often protected and supported by powerful patrons (e.g. the French 17th-century Jean Loret), earning a living through pensions; many others made a living as publishers; still others wrote what would now be considered journalism along with many other kinds of text, including literature (e.g. Defoe, Swift), art reviews, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.. Professional journalism in the modern sense becomes widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries.