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

newspapers were not very accurate. Rather than written by professional journalists,
most of the items came from other newspapers or were taken from letters:
“Newspapers were less purveyors of information that had been screened and tested
for its veracity than a forum for accounts provided by readers and
correspondents.” 8 On the last page was local news of the reelection of a burgess
whose election had been declared void, and an item on an anticipated cider
shortage, “the Apple-Orchards having generally fail’d.” Local and colonial news
made up about ten percent of the total content in this newspaper. 9
A written introduction to this first Virginia newspaper outlined from the
beginning the characteristics the printer wished his prints would demonstrate,
including the fact that public discourse would be on display:
The Design of These Papers, is to inform the Readers, of the most
material Occurrences, as well of Europe, and other Foreign Parts of
the World, as of these American Plantations; which relate to Peace
and War, Trade and Navigation, Changes of Government,
Parliamentary Affairs, … by which the Readers may be improve’d,
amus’d or diverted: which I shall faithfully collect, as well from the
Public Prints, which I have ordered to be transmitted to me, from
several Parts of England and the American Plantations, but all
Opportunities, as from the private Accounts I may receive from my
Correspondents … Letters, Poems, Essays, Translations, &c. which
may tend to the Improvement of Mankind in general or the
innocent Diversion or Entertainment of either Sex, without Offence
to any in particular, they may depend on a Place in this Paper; and
their names concealed if desir’d. 10
8 John Brewer, “The Number 45: A Wilksite Political Symbol,” In England’s Rise to
Greatness, 1660-1763, ed. Stephen B. Baxter (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 358.
9 Virginia Gazette, (Parks, Sept. 10, 1736), 1-4. By comparing column inches, advertisements
were about 20%, European news made up about 45%, Virginia news was about 3%, news from
other colonies about 7%, and literary material with no real location took 25% of the space.
10 Virginia Gazette (Aug. 6, 1736), 1:1. Although this first issue is no longer extant, this
“Printer’s Introduction” from the first issue was quoted in William Maxwell, ed., The Virginia
Historical Register, and Literary Companion, 6 (1853), 21-31.
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