From Maxwell Perspective...

The Birth of the Fourth Estate Part IV

In 1695, the government heeded the call for journalistic freedom, allowing laws that censored the press to lapse. The Stationers’ Company, which had previously enjoyed a monopoly on publishing, was viewed as having abused that privilege. This, combined with greater parliamentary control over the monarchy due to the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89, meant that many saw official control of the press as unnecessary.

The last element then fell into place on March 11, 1702, when Samuel Buckley issued the first daily newspaper. Printed in a single-sheet format like its thrice-weekly competitors, the Daily Courant was so short on news that the reverse of the paper was often left blank. Before long, however, the progress of warfare across Europe helped to fill its pages and make it commercially viable. The daily newspaper was born!

By the end of the English Renaissance, daily newspapers competed for readers along political party lines, advertisements filled the pages, editorials opined, theater reviews discussed the merits of individual plays, and letters to the editor critiqued previous stories. The coffeehouses patronized by the literate and educated were filled with newspapers and periodicals, hawkers populated street corners selling titles hot off the presses, and even provincial newspapers had begun to appear. Although the press could hardly yet be described as free, government control was much more difficult to achieve. Readers had access, arguably, to all the news that was fit to print.

Read more in The Scandalous, the Salacious, and the Unexplained >>

All exhibition images reproduced by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.

This article appeared in the fall 2008 print edition of Maxwell Perspective; © 2008 Maxwell School of Syracuse University. To request a copy, e-mail dlcooke@maxwell.syr.edu.