Rag Linen | Online Museum of Historic Newspapers

“From the vantage point of the twentieth century, journalism historians look back on the period between 1789 and 1808 as the ‘dark ages’ of the American newspaper.” This great line leads the third chapter — titled Weapons in the Great Debate — of John Tebbel’s Compact History of the American Newspaper.

“The golden age of America’s founding was the gutter age of American politics,” said Eric Burns, author of Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism, during a C-SPAN presentation on his book.  According to Burns, when Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Adams were creating this country, journalism was more vile than ever before or ever since.

Tebbel and Burns are primarily referring to The Gazette of the United States and the National Gazette, which were the 18th century equivalent of MSNBC and FOX NEWS. The Aurora General Advertiser, Porcupine’s Gazette and New York Evening Post are three other titles often included in the dark ages.

The Gazette of the United States, edited by John Fenno, supported the Federalist party, which wanted a big, central government and weak states. Alexander Hamilton was the party’s symbolic figurehead. National Gazette, edited by Philip Freneau, represented the Republicans, who wanted more state power and weak central government. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were the Republican’s symbolic figureheads.

According to Burns, Hamilton and Jefferson both used government money — funds from the State Department — to launch their respective Gazettes, which provided as much competitive back-and-forth entertainment as an Agassi-Sampras tennis match. For examples of the barb exchanges watch chapter 14 of Burns’ C-SPAN presentation (starts at 29:52).

As you’ll learn from Burns, Thomas Jefferson had a very devious side to him.  “Jefferson would leave the door to the state dept unlocked at night on occasion and he would leave documents on the desk which, if taken out of context or willfully misinterpreted, could make the Washington administration look bad. Phillip Fernau was the editor of the National Gazette, Jefferson’s paper, and he’s the one who would sneak into the office late at night, copy down these documents and publish articles about them in the National Gazette a few days later.”  Jefferson lied to George Washington on at least one occasion when Washington asked Jefferson if he knew anything about how the National Gazette was obtaining its information.

UPDATE: Via Twitter, @woodpainter asked us to provide a source for Hamilton and Jefferson using State Department money to found their respective Gazettes.  Below are the specific sources, time logs and page numbers with excerpts:

According to Burns’ C-SPAN presentation about Infamous Scribblers (starting at 27:14):

Hamilton appropriated or, if you will, misappropriated government money to start a newspaper. He didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. He took funds from the State Department and created a newspaper called The Gazette of the United States. And he thought that was just fine because he was using government money to promote government positions… Jefferson, however, took State Department money and used it to fund a paper which savaged the government of which Jefferson was one of the main decision makers.

Beyond that, on page 267-8 of Infamous Scribblers, Burns writes:

But it was Hamilton who made [Fenno's newspaper] possible, Hamilton who raised the money to get the Gazette started… He saw to it that all of the Treasury Department’s advertising went to the Gazette of the United States and encouraged friends and firms that did business with various governmental agencies to put their own ads in the paper, the implication being that Hamilton would consider such transactions a favor and that favors were more often than not returned… In addition, Hamilton arranged for Fenno to get as many of Treasury’s printing contracts as possible… In fact, as Ron Chernow points out, Fenno ‘was even listed in the 1791 Philadelphia directory as an officer of the U.S. government.’ Such a relationship between journalism and government could not exist today, not openly at least, and would be scandalous if revealed.

Burns quotes the July 25, 1792 issue of the Gazette of the United States on page 282 of Infamous Scribblers and continues onto pages 283-4:

‘The editor of the National Gazette receives a salary from the government,’ readers are informed in a back-page letter, which then asks how such a publication can be trusted… But was Hamilton not guilty of the same thing? Was he not in fact as much a hypocrite as Jefferson, pursuing his own political ends at the expense of taxpayers… The Gazette of the United States was using government money to support government positions, Hamilton explained, and he believed that to be a perfectly legitimate expense… As late as 1796, Hamilton was still writing in the Gazette of the United States about Jefferson’s having ‘conferred a sinecure office in [the State] department… on Mr. Freneau to induce him to remove to Philadelphia, and set up a newspaper at the seat of the government called the National Gazette.

The Print Shop at Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial newspapers are unsung heroes of the American Revolution and the Revolutionary War. Specifically, several newspapermen and women deserve recognition for their role in America’s founding, including:

• Benjamin Edes and John Gill, Boston Gazette
• Isaiah Thomas, Massachusetts Spy
• William Goddard, Pennsylvania Chronicle
• Peter Timothy, South Carolina Gazette
• Thomas Green, Connecticut Courant
• John Holt, New York Journal
• Solomon Southwick, Newport Mercury
• William Gradford III, Pennsylvania Journal
• Mary Goddard, Maryland Journal
• Anne Catharine Green, Maryland Gazette
• James Rivington, Royal Gazette
• Paul Revere, engraver for colonial newspapers (e.g., Massachusetts Spy and Boston Gazette)

One author who recognizes the revolutionary role of newspapers, and their printers and journalists, is Eric Burns, author of Infamous Scribblers (2006).

Marrying the story-telling flair of McCullough with the journalism history acumen of Mott and Emery, Burns says that the Boston Gazette, arguably the most influential newspaper the country has ever known, got us into the Revolutionary War, sped up the course of the war and may have even determined the outcome of the war. And a good chunk of Infamous Scribblers is dedicated to supporting this thesis.

As Burns admits, “Perhaps the importance of the press to the outcome of the war can be exaggerated, but not easily and not by much. It was newspapers that kept the colonies informed of the progress of the fighting in a way that letters and patterers could not have done, and in the process united the colonies in a way that was beyond the ability of the jerry-built wartime government.”

Burns points out that newspapers were the only form of media at the time and served as the great unifier of our nation during a time when America “needed unity as much as we needed ammunition.”

Below are a few other highlights from Infamous Scribblers:

On reporting and publishing during the Revolutionary War: “The Revolutionary War was not an easy one to cover. For one thing, once the fighting started there was more news than ever but no more shipments of ink or type or spare parts for the presses coming into American ports. There were no more shipments of paper either, and, as for the quantities still available or smuggled into the colonies from a friend in the motherland or a trader in another European nation, there were higher priorities for it than journalism.”

On a newspaper’s role in the Revolutionary War: “It was Franklin, though, who most succinctly and accurately assessed the role of the media in the days leading up to the war. It was he, astute as ever, who pointed out that the press not only can ’strike while the iron is hot,’ but it can ‘heat it by continually striking.’”

On an unlikely spy embedded as a printer: “Jemmy [James] Rivington’s Tory newspaper, the Royal Gazette, was extremely critical of George Washington. However, Rivington was also a spy who passed along secrets of the British navy to colonial leaders. On one occasion, Rivington helped break a British code that almost surely saved American lives during one of the war’s earlier battles.” Read the Rag Linen blog post on this topic.

Additional resources on the role and significance of colonial printers during the American Revolution:

• Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764–1776 (Arthur Schlesinger, 1958)
• Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism (Eric Burns, 2006)
• Back Issues: The Day the Newspaper Died (Jill Lepore, 2009)
• Boston 1775: Edes and Gill (J. L. Bell, 2006-2010)
• Rag Linen Collections: The Stamp Act of 1765 and 1776

Below is the presentation Eric Burns gave at a book store in Washington, DC, which aired on C-SPAN.