A journal (through French from late Latin diurnalis, daily) has several related meanings:

• a daily record of events or business; a private journal is usually referred to as a diary.
• a newspaper or other periodical, in the literal sense of one published each day;
• however, some publications issued at stated intervals, such as a magazine or the record of the transactions of society such as a scientific journal or academic journals in general, are called a journal. Journal, then, is sometimes used as a synonym for "magazine".

The word "journalist" for one whose business is writing for the public press has been in use since the end of the 17th century.

"Journal" is also applied to the record, day by day, of the business and proceedings of a public body:

• The journals of the British Houses of Parliament contain an official record of the business transacted day by day in either house. The record does not take note of speeches, though some of the earlier volumes contain references to them. The journals are a lengthened account written from the "Votes and Proceedings" (in the House of Lords called "Minutes of Proceedings"), made day by day by the Clerks at the Table, and printed on the responsibility of the Clerk of the House. In the Commons the Votes and Proceedings, but not the Journal, bear the Speaker's signature in fulfilment of a former order that he should "peruse" them before publication. The journals of the British House of Commons begin in the first year of the reign of Edward VI in 1547, and are complete, except for a short interval under Elizabeth I. Those of the House of Lords date from the first year of Henry VIII in 1509. Before that date the proceedings in parliament were entered in the rolls of parliament, which extend from 1278 to 1503. The journals of the Lords are "records" in the judicial sense, those of the Commons are not (see Erskine May, Parliamentary Practice, 1906, pp. 201-202).
• Section 5 of Article I of the United States Constitution requires the Congress of the United States to keep a journal of its proceedings. This journal, the Congressional Record is published by the Government Printing Office.

Journals of this sort are also often referred to as minutes.

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NPR Topics: Politics & Society

Letter About Palin Goes Viral
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:05:00 -0400
This week in Wasilla, Alaska, a woman named Anne Kilkenny sent a letter to some college friends about her former mayor, Sarah Palin. By week's end, the letter was pinging around the country and Kilkenny's phone was ringing off the hook.
Teen Sex, Sex Education And Sarah Palin
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:39:00 -0400
Gov. Sarah Palin has been a strong supporter of programs that advocate abstinence until marriage, and she also opposes explicit sex education. Alaska's law is silent on these issues, however, and it provides no specific funding for sex education in the schools.
Examining Palin's Pentecostal Background
Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:14:00 -0400
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has electrified religious conservatives who see her as one of their own. The Republican vice presidential candidate brings evangelical credentials to the ticket and has a Pentecostal background.

The Talk of the Town

Dorothy Wickenden: An old-style, Los Angeles feminist on Obama.
Dorothy Wickenden Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
Rosalind Wyman--seventy-seven years old; doughty feminist; political fund-raiser and philanthropist; hostess to J.F.K., Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton, and Hollywood types too numerous to count; youngest elected member of the Los Angeles City Council (at the age of twenty-two); first woman to run a national political . . .
Lauren Collins: The Brooklyn painter Kehinde Wiley.
Lauren Collins Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
The painter Kehinde Wiley first travelled to Nigeria in 1997. He was trying to find his father, whom he had never met, or, more crucially for a portraitist, seen. (His mother didn’t have any photographs.) After several weeks in Lagos, he found his dad, who welcomed him. But--like any . . .
James Surowiecki: What drives market volatility?
James Surowiecki Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:00:00 -0000
American investors are frazzled. True, oil prices have fallen from their most vertiginous highs, the dollar is a bit stronger, and the stock market has actually risen over the past month. But none of those things have happened in a smooth and steady fashion. The stock market’s “ascent,” in particular . . .

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