ABSTRACT
William Peter Hamilton of The Wall Street Journal once argued that “[a] newspaper is private enterprise owing nothing whatever to the public, which grants it no franchise. It is emphatically the property of the owner, who is selling a manufactured product at his own risk.”1 This is an extreme statement, yet over the past two centuries many shared this attitude. Based on the principles of classical democracy and traditional capitalism, the individual’s right to publish has been a strongly held convention in countries such as the United States. But this mood may be shifting somewhat, at least in theory. Increasingly, enlightened newspaper owners and executives realize their special obligation precisely because newsand not widgets-is their business.
