In America, we expect journalists to have some independence from government and other leading power centers. We are not surprised to glance at the morning newspaper or television news show and see exposure of wrongdoing. We assume that the press has a responsibility to print bad news as well as good. And yet, that which seems ordinary to us is unusual in the history of the world, and even in much of the world today.
How did the unnatural act of independent journalism come to seem so natural? To begin answering that question, we need to go back, back beyond the start of American journalism, back even before Gutenberg. Journalism—information and analysis concerning recent events, published in multiple copies or disseminated beyond the immediate reach of the speaker’s voice—is many centuries old. Journalistic products emerged in many lands and in many varieties, but they most often promoted the...