When a runaway cart of dwarfish printing equipment crashes into his life, minor nobleman William de Worde stops writing his subscription newsletter for expatriate nobs and accidentally invents Ankh-Morpork's first newspaper, the Ankh-Morpork Times. Chasing a scoop about a plot against Patrician Vetinari pits William and his scrappy staff against journalism of a much less scrupulous kind, and forces him to work out what a free press is actually for.
Summary by Loreful, from public sources