ABSTRACT
“Pre-Revolution Print: The Colonial Origins of the American Press” explains the role of the press in the American Revolution, focusing on the ways particular colonists used newspapers as a tool to call for a political separation from Britain. Among these printers, the chapter features Benjamin Franklin’s work as illustrative of a publishing style that reached a wide audience, noting how diverse content and contributors fueled news literacy in the decades preceding the Revolution. The chapter also features the way Samuel Adams used his Boston Gazette to propagandize the colonists’ move toward independence, as his print accounts of events swayed ambivalent readers to oppose British rule. Using materials from this chapter, students should be able to explain why those in the press still practice Franklin’s approach to publishing as a way to maximize profits. Conversely, they should also be able to describe how the press and popular publications—sometimes by publishing only one side of the story—influenced readers into supporting the cause of independence from Britain, and they should differentiate between the notion of balanced reporting (i.e. “objective reporting”) with efforts to attract advertisers. Key words, names, and phrases associated with Chapter 1 include: Postmasters, the postal exchange; Benjamin Franklin, Apology for Printers, Elizabeth Timothy; the radical press; and Samuel Adams, Boston Gazette, the Boston Massacre.
