David M. Shribman: The Virginia Gazette's enduring legacy of a free press

WILLIAMSBURG, Virginia ― The governor of Virginia was relieved there was no school in the colonial capital. No newspaper, either.

"Thank God we have no free schools nor printing," boasted Gov. William Berkeley in 1671, adding, "God keep us from both."

Those were the good old days for those in power. Donald Trump doesn't have it as good, which is why the other day he banned several news organizations from the White House. That can't, and won't, last, just as it didn't in Colonial Williamsburg.

God cooperated for a while with Sir William, and with those who followed him, who also discouraged the creation of a newspaper. Then, six decades later, William Parks, founder of the first newspaper in Maryland and encouraged by the success newspapers had in other colonies, came to town. Suddenly, there was a newspaper in Williamsburg.

Williamsburg, and the world, was a better place, though maybe not for politicians. For it was William Hunter, the successor publisher to Parks, who wrote in 1752, "Where there is a Press (a licensed press is worse than none) no false doctrine in Religion, Policy or Physic, can be broached, and remain long undetected."

The press today is in disrepute; a Gallup poll last year found that only a quarter of Americans express trust in the media. But a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found that three-quarters of American adults believe press freedom is "extremely" or "very" important.

Meanwhile, the press today is consumed with looking forward: New forms. Fresh initiatives. Creative uses of AI. But what if the answer is in the past, way back to colonial times and America's fragile experiments with democracy and press freedom?

Some elements of the colonial press in mid-18th century America won't fly today. The Gazette wasn't a chronicle of events, nor was it an active participant in the politics of the community; it was a digest of the times, an important intellectual outlet and a weekly album of assorted literary snapshots of the world.

Those newspapers ― filled with provocative essays, excerpts from letters, official proclamations and advertisements measuring the tempo of the community while transmitting a commercial message ― seldom offered the daily news items today's audiences demand. They were offbeat recreational distractions that attempted to minimize the colonists' isolation from the political and social capitals of the wider world, mostly across the Atlantic.

The Gazette served the residents of cosmopolitan Williamsburg, the capital of colonial Virginia, that way. Williamsburg was the locus of activity for the cavalier Virginian elite. The College of William and Mary lent an intellectual air to the community, as it does today, except perhaps on late November weekends when Richmond comes to town to renew the Capital Cup, the fourth-longest rivalry in college football.

Then as now, Williamsburg was a dignified commercial center, though in colonial days, much of the activity centered around the political institutions housed in the governor's mansion and the capitol. Members of the Virginia gentry met there to govern the colony ― and to enjoy "Publick Times." (I'm told public drinking is still a much-honored activity in these precincts.)

For years, no newspaper was published in Williamsburg ― or in the entire South. With a governor appointed in England, the atmosphere was hardly conducive to the birth of a newspaper.

Why was Parks' paper a success in Williamsburg?

The Virginia Gazette was, in a word, interesting. It satisfied a social and intellectual hunger that characterized colonial life throughout British America.

The colonists, living in spare, isolated settlements peppered along the Atlantic coast, were curious about their neighbors and the world. They wondered about life in Philadelphia, New York and Boston. They were interested in what other colonists were thinking and doing. They devoured reports about the monarchs and battles of Europe.

Transportation between the colonies and Europe was slow, making communication slow. The wharves were watched for ships bearing letters, and it's not surprising that many printers also were postmasters. The citizens of the colonies were naturally attracted to any medium of communication. Reading a newspaper was easier than trading letters, and the Virginians enjoyed the stories from The Gentleman's Magazine that often appeared.

Local poets, from utopians to the lovelorn, enjoyed having their works published, and slave owners, through descriptive ads, found ways to capture runaways. Planters far from the city center wanted access to gossip and stories, and The Virginia Gazette served as their absentee ears. Social and public events acquired a certain quality of dignity by being announced in the newspaper, and politicians seeking to have their words heard beyond the walls of the Capitol found the Gazette useful.

The appearance of the Gazette changed communication patterns in Williamsburg. No longer did a colonist have to rely exclusively on word of mouth, posters and news exchanged at local inns. Though in its early days a court paper with most of its columns filled with accounts of the proceedings of the English government, the paper quickly became an institution in Williamsburg. Inside Raleigh Tavern, the most popular gathering spot in Williamsburg, the paper was passed around or read aloud.

The Virginia Gazette differed from modern conceptions of a newspaper in its manner of presentation. Smaller than today's tabloids, it was deliberate and low-key, devoid of sensationalism in tone. The type was set tightly with minute letters in two columns under the Gazette's masthead and slogan ("Containing the Freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestick"). The 18th-century subscriber, like Trump, knew capitalized words inside a sentence were to be emphasized.

"The public was led to place the emphasis where the author or the editor intended," the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger explained, "and inert print acquired something of the animation and impact of oral discourse."

Printers ― they weren't called "editors" ― weren't haughty bigshots in the community lording their power over others and didn't consider themselves opinion-makers; those who led the early Gazette didn't employ it as an instrument for a crusade. Their choice of articles between 1745 and 1755, for example (with the exception of the pre-French and Indian War period), reflected a desire to present a disinterested, nonpartisan newspaper stressing conventional and universal values.

Consider that phrase: "a disinterested, nonpartisan newspaper," and remember that "disinterested" doesn't have to mean "uninteresting." And let's remember this was a period shortly before Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the greatest "printer" of the era, would go to France as America's minister and say that telling the truth "is my only cunning."

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David M. Shribman is the former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.