Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner
Newspaper publisher John Peter Zenger was thrown into prison without a trial in 1734. His crime? Printing harsh criticisms of William Cosby, the newly-appointed Governor of the New York and New Jersey colonies. Cosby accused Zenger of seditious libel and angrily threw the weight of his administration against him.
Zenger was not Cosby’s only critic. The governor had already made himself a pariah in the colonies. He was described as a vile ruler. Zenger and his financial backers wanted the governor put on a ship back to London. So did a good many other colonists.
While Zenger languished in jail without a trial for nearly a year, his wife Anna kept the New York Weekly Journal in print. Zenger finally got his day in court. It had become very apparent that the young publisher’s fate was of great importance to the colonies and the future American Republic.
Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton, told the jurors: “The question before the court and you gentlemen of the jury is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of a poor printer nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. No. It may in its consequence affect every freedman that lives under a British government on the main of America. It is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty,” and you will have “laid a noble foundation for securing it for ourselves and our posterity.”
Zenger was found not guilty.
Newspapers were and continue to be the backbone of American journalism. They have been among the cornerstones of democratic government as it has evolved and renewed. Their influence on self-governance from rural hamlets to the halls of Congress cannot be overstated.
Indeed, the history of American newspapers and freedom of the press in this country parallels the history of America, chronicling its passage before and after our formal break from Great Britain 250 years ago this year.
All along, newspapers have made both highly constructive and highly destructive but always indelible imprints on our experiment in self-government. The press has played a vital role in the preservation of individual rights as well as the fulfillment of the responsibilities of citizenship.
Their failings have been well documented. They, and the other tentacles of the media, have fostered a negative and hyperbolic environment in which the nation has become more polarized and distrustful of government and the press. The media have lost trust with the American people.
They have for better and worse, shaped public opinion and by doing so provided a check on the actions of both government and its elected leaders.
“Our government rests in public opinion,” Abraham Lincoln once observed. “Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.”
That is why media literacy is so important now, when people have become estranged from their system of government. There is a crisis of confidence in the nation that has imperilled our political way of life. Regrettably, newspapers have been hit the hardest by this momentous change in media and public attitudes. Some of it has to do with the proliferation of alternative “news” sources, social media being the most egregious. Some has to do with the pure media industry economics. Some has to do with shifts in public lifestyles. Nevertheless, a fair and accountable media remains critical.
The Founding Fathers felt strongly about the essential role and powerful influence that public communication would have on their budding Republic and the consent of the people. They protected that role in the First Amendment with freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right to assemble peaceably and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. They also understood that the people had to understand the machinations of the new experimental representative democracy in order to influence it and control it.
“To understand how government works, you must understand the media and their influence,” Jerry Climer and I wrote in our book Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People. “If you don’t understand how government works, how then can you access it or influence it to your advantage?”
The extent of the damage to newspapers has been severe. A PEW Research study last year found that those who say they follow news all or most of the time dropped from 51 percent to 36 percent from a 10 years earlier. The number who follow news only now and then has gone up from 12 to 18 percent in that time.
The AP reported recently that 136 newspapers have closed in the past year, creating more “news deserts” across the country. Nearly 3,000 papers have disappeared in the last decade.
I sold newspapers on a street corner as a pre-teen, in front of the Nickel café in Sioux Falls, SD. I began my professional career as a reporter for a daily paper in Illinois. To this day, I love the smell of newsprint and vividly recall the clicking sound of the old linotype machines as they turned my words into hot metal. Daily newspapers were, and I hope will be, an integral part of our lives, with an unbreakable bond with the people and their critical need for good, reliable, readable and knowledgeable news. They are an integral part of informed popular consent.
Information is power. The newspapers, broadsheets and pamphlets of the Republic’s infancy helped empower an American revolution and gradually make the U.S. the envy of people around the globe. The “news” we get today, may not be what most people want or need, but the news is more relevant today than it ever was and it remains up to all of us to ensure that it serves the public good among all else.
Mike Johnson is a former Illinois newspaper editor, member of the White House staff of President Gerald R. Ford, press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel and a senior executive with lobbying and public affairs organizations. He was a co-founder and chairman of the Congressional Institute and held voluntary leadership roles with several other non-profit organizations dedicated to the betterment of the U.S. Congress. He is a co-author of Surviving Congress, a book written for new members of Congress and staff. He is also co-author of Fixing Congress: Restoring Power to the People. He is married to Thalia Assuras and has five children and five grandchildren.
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