ABSTRACT
Law plays a pervasive role in American society. This should come as littlesurprise, given that the United States was founded upon the rule of law. Law’s defining role is all the more true in the case of the American press because the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution “reaffirms the structural role of free speech and a free press in a working democracy.”1 Undoubtedly, the evolutionary process of press freedom has shaped the history of American mass media, especially since the early nineteenth century. Thus, as Timothy Gleason noted, “The history of freedom of the press is legal history, which is to say that the history of freedom of the press cannot be studied without paying attention to the law of freedom of the press.”2 Additionally, he characterized the meaning of press freedom as “one of the most important questions” for historians in making sense of journalism and communication history.3
