The Origins of a Free Press in Prerevolutionary ... - Web Publishing

Chapter 7
Thomas Jefferson and the Origins of Newspaper Competition
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Thomas Jefferson has long been credited with bringing print competition to
Virginia, allowing for a “patriot” voice for the first time in a colony where printing
was controlled by the royal government:
Until the beginning of our revolutionary dispute, we had but one
press, and that having the whole business of the government, and
no competitor for public favor, nothing disagreeable to the
governor could be got into it. We procured [William] Rind to
come from Maryland to publish a free paper. 1
Just at the time Parliament’s hated 1765 Stamp Act threatened the printers’ very
livelihood, a new printer was encouraged to open a second shop in Williamsburg,
bringing competition to that field—and a second newspaper to Virginia—for the
first time. This was an important watershed for the culture and government of the
colony, because it signified a shift in the power structure. Control of public
messages began to relocate from the royal government to the consumer
marketplace. This was a transformation that had a major impact on civic discourse
in the colony. Despite such significance, the reasons behind such change and the
relevance of it have often been misunderstood. It has widely been accepted that
Jefferson was responsible for bringing such print competition to Virginia, and that
direct “patriot” influence was behind a freer and more open press. This Jefferson
connection has been constantly repeated by historians, as has early print historian
Isaiah Thomas’ contention that Jefferson confirmed this in a letter written
1 Thomas Jefferson, quoted by Thomas, History of Printing in America, 566. An earlier
version of this chapter is being published as “Thomas Jefferson and the Origins of Newspaper
Competition in Pre-Revolutionary Virginia,” Journalism History (Oct. 2009.)