Francis Foster

Deep foundations of our culture are hidden, but still visible, especially things like, what is news?

And in the 1730s, there's a German immigrant from the Rhineland named John Peter Zenger.

And after apprenticing for a printer in Philadelphia, he moves to New York with his wife and opens a small newspaper

called the New York Journal.

And he begins publishing the news of the day.

And he publishes an account, which he says is true, of the royal governor of New York.

Remember, the Brits still rule in the 1730s, still rule New York.

And about corruption, self-dealing, failure to look after the public, his public duties.

What he has to say about the governor is less important than what happens next.

The governor cannot, under British law, directly jail him unless he accuses him of a crime.

And libel is a crime, which you can be in prison for this time.

So he's imprisoned and held for eight months before trial, which is one of the reasons why cases like this is why you have a right to be arraigned in a very specific amount of time under the U.S.

Constitution to this day, and why you have the right to a jury trial and so on.

So if you're imprisoned...

Your food in the 1730s in New York at this time has to be brought to you by your wife or friends of yours.

Someone has to bring you food every day.

The prison doesn't necessarily feed you.

So his wife would put out the newspaper because that's how they made the money to pay for the food and pay the rent.

and they keep trying to shut down her newspaper and she works and she would go to jail every night and provide the food to her husband and he would say okay go over to new jersey take this rowboat over and you know all these little machinations to stay in business right much later the new york journal is merged

into a newspaper that you may have heard of called the New York Post after many changes of ownership and splits in ownership.