The two main newspapers were The Tatler (1709) and The Spectator (1711), both largely written by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.
Newspapers were mainly about manners, literature, stories, gossip and moral reflections and they were addressed to a middle-class audience.
When the two writers realised that readers would've enjoyed a group of characters conversing more than an essay, they created the Spectator Club, where the main character was an eccentric country squire. In this was the essayist was an armchair companion talking about life.