We've come to the end of another year in the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge. I hope you'll let me know if you enjoyed these posts. The history refresher sure did me some good.
Freedom of the press has its origins in the Bill of Rights, but decades before the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights were ever drafted, the trial of publisher John Peter Zenger, would prove a milestone in the struggle for freedom of the press.
Born in Germany in 1697, Zenger emigrated to New York City at the age of 13 to work as an indentured apprentice to printer William Bradford. Financially backed by chief justice Lewis Morris and others who opposed William Cosby, the corrupt royal governor of New York, Zenger started the New-York Weekly Journal in 1733. The publication accused Cosby of rigging elections and a list of other crimes.
Even though Zenger never wrote the articles, as publisher, he was legally responsible for the paper's content. This led to his arrest for seditious libel in 1734. He spent ten months in jail and his wife, Anna, kept the paper going. It was Anna's reports that led to the replacement of the first jury in Zenger's trial, which was stacked with people on Cosby's payroll.
Andrew Hamilton, a famous lawyer from Philadelphia, defended Zenger. Hamilton argued Zenger had not committed seditious libel because the printed material was true. Though the court refused to accept evidence submitted to prove the truth of the articles, the jury acquitted Zenger, which paved the way for other publishers to feel free sharing their honest views.
