From its earliest days, the press played a pivotal role in American politics and civic life. The trial of printer John Peter Zenger in 1735 established the principle of the free press, and publishers throughout the colonies quickly embraced the concept. The controversy over independence was hotly debated in newspapers. Through letters and debates, the press helped shape the idea of a uniquely American identity. This volume demonstrates how freedom of the press is part of American heritage from colonial times and how it remains essential to democracy to this day.

The present volume, the first in the series, begins with the earliest printing in the American colonies and takes the story through the Revolutionary War. As subsequent volumes will do, it focuses on the nature of journalism during the years surveyed, chronicles noteworthy figures, examines the relationship of journalism to society, and provides explanations for the main directions that journalism was taking. The remaining five volumes will complete The History of American Journalism in chronological order and are scheduled to appear over the next five years.

Colonial American Newspapers fills an important gap in the study of the content of colonial prints and concludes that as newspapers evolved to meet the informational needs of society, they helped unify the colonies by focusing upon events of local and intercolonial importance.

Countering assumptions about early American print culture and challenging our scholarly fixation on the novel, Jared Gardner reimagines the early American magazine as a rich literary culture that operated as a model for nation-building by celebrating editorship over authorship and serving as a virtual salon in which citizens were invited to share their different perspectives. The Rise and Fall of Early American Magazine Culture reexamines early magazines and their reach to show how magazine culture was multivocal and presented a porous distinction between author and reader, as opposed to novel culture, which imposed a one-sided authorial voice and restricted the agency of the reader.

First there was the spoken word, the long-distance runner, and later the wall posters of ancient Rome and China. Here is an investigation of the human need to gather and spread news, proving that the hunger for news and sensationalism wasn't born with modern technology.

In the United States, the press has sometimes been described as an unoffical fourth branch of government, a branch that serves as a check on the other three and provides the information necessary for a democracy to function. Freedom of the press--guaranteed but not defined by the First Amendment of the Constitution--can be fully understood only when examined in the context of the political and intellectual experiences of 18th-century America. Here, Jeffery A. Smith explores how Madison, Franklin, Jefferson, and their contemporaries came to see liberty of the press as a natural and vital part of a democratic republic. Drawing on sources ranging from political philosophers to court records and newspaper essayists, Printers and Press Freedom traces the development of a widespread conception of the press as necessarily exempt from all government restrictions, but still liable for the defamation of individuals. Smith carefully analyzes libertarian press theory and practice in the context of republican ideology and Enlightenment thought--paying particular attention to the cases of Benjamin Franklin and his relatives and associates in the printing business--and concludes that the generation that produced the First Amendment believed that government should not be trusted and that the press needed the broadest possible protection in order to serve as a check on the misuse of power.

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