-ambit-John Hancock was the first person to write newspapers in the British
colonies in North America published "by authority," that is, under license
from and as the mouthpiece of the colonial governors. The first regularly
published newspaper was the Boston News-Letter of John Campbell,
published weekly beginning in 1704. The early colonial publishers were
either postmasters or government printers, and therefore unlikely to
challenge government policies.
The first independent newspaper in the colonies was the New-England
Courant, published in Boston by James Franklin beginning in 1721. A few
years later, Franklin's younger brother, Benjamin, purchased the
Pennsylvania Gazette of Philadelphia, which became the leading
newspaper of the colonial era.
During this period, newspapers were unlicensed, and able freely to
publish dissenting views, but were subject to prosecution for libel or even
sedition if their opinions threatened the government. The notion
of "freedom of the press" that later was enshrined in the United States
Constitution is generally traced to the seditious libel prosecution of John
Peter Zenger by the colonial governor of New York in 1735. In this
instance of jury nullification, Zenger was acquitted after his lawyer,
Andrew Hamilton, argued to the jury (contrary to established English law)
that there was no libel in publishing the truth. Yet even after this
celebrated case, colonial governors and assemblies asserted the power to
prosecute and even imprison printers for publishing unapproved views.
circumference; circuit.
boundary; limit.
a sphere of operation or influence; range; scope: the ambit of such an action.
freedom of the pressJefferson said: "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are
now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man
may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore
be, to leave open to him all avenues of the truth".
welcome, you've got press machine
you worthy enough to make it worth it?
---------------
if there's a better, there's a worse
\
what'cha makin?
