16 Brooten, McElhone and Venkiteswaran (U Thaung 1995). Burmese King Mindon was impressed with these early papers and their ability to openly critique leaders, and he became a strong proponent of a free press, which he tried to implement (Lintner 2001; U Thaung 1995). The first printing press in Burma was set up in the early nineteenth century by American missionary Adoniram Judson, who also printed the first book, The Way To Heaven, which he wrote and then published in 1816 (U Thaung 1995). The early papers in Burma were published in English, with the exception of two papers produced by the local Baptist mission. One was the Hsa-tu-gaw (Morning Star). Launched in 1842 in Sgaw Karen language, it was considered the country’s first ethnic language newspaper. It was also the longest-running vernacular newspaper, until its closure by General Ne Win just before he took power in 1962 (San San May 2016; Smith 1991). The other was the Myanmarlanguage Christian Dhamma Thadinsa (Religious Herald), founded in 1843 and considered the country’s first Burmese-language newspaper (San San May 2016). In 1853 the ethnic Arakan Weekly Press published a twice-weekly paper called the Akyab Commercial News (later called Arakan News) in Sittwe, in what is now officially called Rakhine State (San San May 2016). English-language newspapers were published in Rangoon (now officially called Yangon) as early as 1853; the first Burmese-language paper in Rangoon was believed to have been launched in 1869 (San San May 2016). Censorship rules in Burma were largely determined by the British administration in India (Larkin 2003). Following the Indian Mutiny in 1857,7 the Governor General of India, Lord Canning, attempted to regulate the press by banning the publication of news without prior approval; his law became known as the “Gagging Act” (De 2013, p. 166). Then, in 1873, two years before the British annexation of Upper Burma, the country’s second-to-last reigning monarch, King Mindon, introduced an act ensuring freedom of the press, considered the first indigenous press freedom law in Southeast Asia (The Irrawaddy 2016; Lintner 2001). One year later, the king started publishing a weekly.8 In 1878 he also established the Burma Herald to counter what he called the pro-British views of Rangoon newspapers. That same year, the Vernacular Press Act was enacted in British India, of which Burma was a part, banning newspapers from reporting or depicting what it termed defamation of the government. 01 ch1-MyanmarMediaIT-5P.indd 16 8/4/19 10:29 am