This paper examines contextual features that shaped the contents and language of early modern print news. The analysis focuses on English periodical news and to a lesser extent modes and practices of news transmission in continental Europe. The three principal features that the paper examines are: authority, politics and economic interests. The term ‘authority’ is used in relation to the news writers’ need to invest credibility in themselves and what they wrote. This quest for authority influenced the language news writers adopted as they attempted to check the social diffidence that accompanied much pamphlet news. The political context also impacted on the language of periodical news in various fundamental ways; for example, political considerations discouraged the use of headlines, margin captions and the non-chronological reporting of a news event. Economic considerations explain the development of advertising and the use of structural and visual features associated with the text type.