First Amendment- Freedom of Speech, freedom of press

The courtship between the First Amendment and the mass media can trace its roots back to Colonial America. The mechanical printing press, invented in the fifteenth century, had come across the ocean and was being employed by the American colonies for the dissemination of many messages, some of which were political. England, angered that these certain messages openly criticized their government of the New World, sought to inhibit free speech. The three mechanisms that they used, government censorship, taxation, and seditious libel, comprised America's first encounter with prior restraint.

The first mechanism of prior restraint in the American colonies was government censorship. This practice, though not shared by all colonies, was a younger brother of England's mandatory licensing of all printing presses. The English licensing, introduced in 1530, required that all persons wishing to run a press meet certain criteria, mainly to refrain from criticizing the church or state. Those persons who published any material without a license were subject to severe penalties. Across the ocean, the American colonies did not require official licensing of newspapers and the like. However, some colonies still exercised the philosophy that printing was under state jurisdiction. (Meiklejohn, Alexander Pp. 61-63)

The second mechanism of prior restraint was the 1712 Stamp Act, which England imposed on the colonies. With this act, effective until 1855, publishers had to pay taxes on all newspapers, pamphlets, advertisements, and the paper itself. This meant that not only did the government know who was printing, via tax records, but the government also had monetary control over who could afford to print. Unlike the licensing philosophy, American colonists strongly objected to the taxation, the objection of which manifested itself in several acts of revolt.

The third mechanism of prior restraint was the punishment of seditious libel. Seditious libel was the printed criticism of any people in authority, be they government officials or leaders of the English Church. Consequences for this were so severe that many publishers refrained out of fear from printing anything controversial about an official. However, one man would prompt the colonies to rethink this accepted restraint. John Peter Zenger, publisher of the New York Weekly Journal , printed a negative piece about Governor William Crosby. Crosby reacted to the article by accusing Zenger of seditious libel, thus taking Zenger to court. Before the jury, Zenger, represented by Alexander Hamilton, admitted his “guilt” in publishing criticisms of the governor. However, Hamilton argued that these criticisms were true, in which case the truth should acquit Zenger from any wrongdoing. In the end, the jury decided to release Zenger on the basis that his message, though critical of an official, was nonetheless true. The acquittal of Zenger was the first stepping stone in a series that would finally lead to the birth of the First Amendment. After the American Revolution was fought and won, the new Constitution of the United States was created, and in 1791, the First Amendment was accepted. This first amendment (part of the Bill ...