I'm reading some issues of the "Gaceta de Madrid", a gazette that was first published in 1695 in Spain. As you can see (if you speak Spanish) it consisted of around nine or ten pages with news from around Europe, the Middle East and America. From what I know, those gazettes got very popular at that time, and some of them still exist in some form.

For example, take a look at the 21st of November of 1775: https://www.boe.es/diario_gazeta/hemeroteca.php?a=1775&m=11&d=21

In just this issue there are news from Basra (where the correspondent describes the political situation of the whole zone and the weeks-long siege of Basra itself), Seida (Palestine), the "northern frontiers of Poland", Stockholm, Berlin, London (the entire king's speech is translated), Paris, Rome, and then national news. If you look at other editions, you will see that they published news from tens of different cities, which seems a lot, especially at a time were travelling from one place to another could only be done by horse or sailboat, and news could not travel faster than the messenger carrying them.

TL;DR: So... how did those gazettes work? Did they have correspondents or "proto-journalists" who received a payment for their work and money for their expenses? Or were they just normal dudes, like merchants, who sent these messages back home if they saw something interesting? Would these journalists dedicate themselves exclusively to this job? How did gazettes maintain such a large network of collaborators? Maybe those correspondents were diplomats and ambassadors who did this aside from (or as part of) their job?

(This is a repost from this post of mine from 4 months ago)