It wasn’t until 1690 that newspapers were introduced to the United States. Publick Occurrences both Foreign and Domestic, appearing in Boston, Massachusetts, was the first publication. Having been published without any regard to authority, its first (and last) edition was initially met with great resistance. Much of the resistance was due to unfavorable reporting on the British treatment of French prisoners, suggestions that the British had aligned themselves with “savages,” and the fact that the publisher, Benjamin Harris, had not received permission to print the publication. Publick Occurrences was immediately suppressed, Harris was arrested, and all copies were destroyed. But why?
According to Bruce Thornton, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a professor of classics and humanities at California State University, “The notion that reporters should possess Olympian objectivity is relatively recent. In the nineteenth century, most newspapers were explicitly linked to a particular political party and the economic interests of the publisher.”
