Sorry for very late and incomplete response.

 

Publisher Johannes Carolus (1575?-1634?) in Strasbourg (HRE, now in France) is generally regarded as a 'founding father' of the first neekly newspaper, titled as 'Relation: Aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien / so sich hin vnnd wider in Hoch und Nieder Teuschland / und Auch Franckreich / Italien / Schott vnd Engelland / Hisspanien / Hungarn / Polen Siebenbürgen / Wallachy / Moldaw / Türckey / ac Jnn diesem [Year] ('Relations of all the important and worth printing episodes, occuring in southern and northern Germany, and also, in France, Italy, Scotland and England, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Transsilvania, Wallachia, Moldaw, and Ottoman Empire in the year ????')', and first published in 1605 (though the oldest extant one is from 1609). 352 news in 1609 came from 17 different cities, though 90% of them actually concentrated on the five important cities in Europe: Prague (25%), Vienna (22%), and Cologne, Venice and Rome respectively occupied ca. 15% of the provenance of the news (Würgler 2000: 36). These cities were important hub in the emerging Imperial Post system in HRE. Newspapers and printing (see the occupation of Johannes Carolus above), and post system that deliverred the newspaper across Europe certainly constitutes three imporant pillers of the later phase of Early Modern 'Printing Revolution', as famously called by Eisenstein, or, 'Media Revolution', by some recent scholars.

 

Then, was there any written news network until this beginning of the 17th century? This was not certainly the case. In fact, the origin of 'news flash' possibly in a sense date back further to the invention of printing by Johannes Gutenberg in the middle of the 15th century. Some merchants in Later Medieval Europe had already used a king of express courier services to make their trade smoothly. House Fugger, banker family in Augsburg, HRE, had build an early example of such courier information network, and they began to issue their news-letters periodically to the 'subscribers' in the 16th century. Emperor Maximilian I of HRE (d. 1519) is also a pioneer of this field: He order to print out hundreds of copies of his edicts and instructions, and to sent them to imperial cities across the empire. These copies were to be displayed or read around on the platform in the plaza. Maximilian's copies clearly also had an aspect of propaganda.

 

16th century Europe were not only the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration, but also the Era of Religious War. Major printing press, located in big cities like Venice and Augsburg, issued diverse news of Europe, including rumors and also, a kind of 'fake news', based on the propaganda wars devided Europe, in form of phamphlet: This first map of the capital of Aztec empire was publlished (probably as a woodcut) in Nuremberg in 1524, together with the letters of Cortez to enhance the image of Emperor Charles V as a patron of the remarcable conquest. The print of the first visit of Japanese boy embassy in Rome (1585 1586) was also issued in several printing press across Europe to promote the legitimacy of the Catholic Church. These kind of news pamphlet are almost flooded in the archives across Europe, so they must have been available in relatively inexpensively prices. Thus, this period was indeed a first era of propaganda and fake news in printed papers, as we in the 21th century are experiencing in its 2nd in Internet.

 

At last, I also should mention a precursor of economic section in the current newspaper in the 16th century Europe. The Dutchmen began to compile the list of the commodities and their price periodically (first quarterly in a year), and printed such list ('Commodity Price Currents') out to distribute widely (for inviting more merchants and commodities into their cities). Dutch cities like Antwerpen and Amsterdam in the 16th and 17th century were in fact the most advanced hub of information as well as the commodities in Northern Europe.

 

References:

• North, Michael. Kommunikation, Handel, Geld und Banken in der frühen Neuzeit. München: Oldenbourg, 2000. EDG 59. (in German)
• Pettegree, Andrew. The Book in the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale UP, 2010.
• Würgler, Andreas. Medien in der frühen Neuzeit. München: Oldenbourg, 2009. EDG 89. (in German)

[Edited]: typo fixes. Corrects the date of official arrival of Tensho embassy in Rome from 1586 to 1585 (really sorry).