Why Was "The Times" Newspaper First Published?

Not such a daft question, when you realise that it was the first newspaper in the world, when it started in 1785. So why then?

It started mostly as an advertising sheet, called the "Daily Universal Register".  John Walter, a London-based coal merchant, was the publisher.  Mostly the sheets had advertisements on them, so their purpose was to make money.  

Probably it was a viable enterprise then because literacy rates had risen with the industrial revolution and Age of Enlightenment.

Walter's innovation was to put ostensibly objective news stories in his newspaper, too. These were favourable to the government and secretly fed to him by the government (he was paid for this, too).  In 1788 he expanded the numbers printed and renamed the paper "The Times", adding gossip about public persons to the columns, too.

Walters was sent to prison for two years about a story the paper did on the Prince of Wales.

Not until the 1800s did "The Times" start to employ independent reporters to gather news.