Freedom of the Press/Era
Is the identification of this right associated with a particular era in history, political regime, or political leader?
Sociologically, the emergence of the freedom of the press as a concept in law dovetails roughly with the Enlightenment. There is an argument to be made that the foundation for the rights articulated during 18th century was established nearly one hundred years prior with natural law philosophers such as John Locke, and while that’s somewhat true, the vernacularization and expansion of rights dialogue during the Enlightenment cannot be neglected as having been foundational to the identification of the right to a free press. (Edelstein. “Enlightenment Rights Talk.”) As liberalism began to take shape in Europe and principles of innate human dignity and natural rights began to enter everyday western European discourse, so too did the principle of a free press come into law. The earliest documented law governing the free press was enacted in Sweden in 1766 with the Swedish Freedom of Print Act. This law, at least in essence enshrined the freedom of the press on all topics with four specific exceptions. These exceptions were: “challenges to the Evangelical faith; attacks on the constitution, the royal family or foreign powers; defamatory remarks about civil servants or fellow citizens; and indecent or obscene literature.” (Nordin, “Swedish Freedom to Print Act”) All other topics were more or less protected under this provision of the law. By modern standards this seems to be an incredibly tepid, and seemingly limited conception of freedom of the press —especially given that the Swedish free press law largely protected powerful institutions like the church and monarchy — but nevertheless it was a radically progressive take on the freedom of the press for its time. It was not until decades later that the American conception of the right to a free press would come to exist in various states before being ratified as a part of the United States’ Constitutional Bill of Rights in 1791. However, during the French Revolution and the intellectual culture that accompanied it, the articulation of the right to a free press was made in The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. In the document, drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette with feedback from Thomas Jefferson, the right is articulated as follows, “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.” ("Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen") The interaction between Jefferson and the Marquis is not insignificant as it likely shaped the development of the conception of the right to a free press as it came to exist in the American context as well. During the preceding century (the seventeenth century) when the printing press first made its way to urban centers such as Boston and Philadelphia in the American colonies, there were several notable cases of journalists being tried for sedition and libel by English colonial magistrates. After the American revolution, states began to adopt their own constitutions, and supplement the federal constitution, which at the time lacked a bill of rights. One early articulation of the protection of the freedom of the press in the American context was in Pennsylvania’s state constitution. “The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1790 provided that ‘every citizen may freely speak, write, and print on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that Liberty. In prosecutions for the publications of papers…the truth may be given in evidence.’ Delaware and Kentucky followed suit with their constitutions in 1792.” This was the early makings of the truth as a defense in cases of libel. (Kahane, 1976) The articulation of the right to a free press in the Pennsylvania state constitution is strikingly similar to that in The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the citizen. These commonalities, if they are more than mere coincidences, point to the overarching influence of the Enlightenment on the formulation of the right to a free press, as well as the connections between the intellectual circles in France and the United States that shaped the recognition of the right to a free press.
References:
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp
Edelstein, Dan. “Enlightenment Rights Talk.” The Journal of Modern History, vol. 86, no. 3, 2014, pp. 530–565. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/676691. Accessed 15 July 2021
Kahane, Dennis S. “Colonial Origins of Our Free Press.” American Bar Association Journal, vol. 62, no. 2, 1976, pp. 202–206. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25727515. Accessed 9 July 2021.)
Nordin, “The Swedish Freedom of Print Act of 1776 – Background and Significance” https://www.swlaw.edu/sites/default/files/2018-04/Nordin%20Pages%20from%207.2%20FULL%20v7%20%284_13_18%29_.pdf)