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- [00:00]
Grow Therapy Advertiser
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- [01:00]
Isaac Sowell
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- [01:27]
Isaac Sowell
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- [01:31]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
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- [02:12]
Isaac Sowell
Good morning, good afternoon and good Evening and happy Fourth of July. Basically today is July 3rd, but we're there. I mean it's, you know, this is the federal holiday I think most people have off today. Tomorrow's the actual fourth 250 has arrived. And as we celebrate America's 250th anniversary, I've been thinking a lot about the history of the country. And I know much ink will be spilled about where we are as a nation, what we've overcome, what's broken what works and where we're going. Like many Americans and American writers, I've been ruminating on this anniversary from many different angles. But today my mind is stuck on one specific part of our country's story, the freedom of the press and the power of the publish button. I don't take it for granted that I have the ability to immediately reach half a million readers directly and millions more indirectly at any moment, with a few clacks on the keyboard and a couple clicks of the mouse. Despite the ease of that feat, it was never guaranteed, not technologically, culturally, legally. Until very recently, few of us have taken the time to reflect on how we got here, why we're here, and how important it is to spend the next 250 years keeping the spirit of the American press and the press freedom alive. Tangle, like all daily news publications, ascends from acta diurna, or daily acts, the posted announcements of political and social events in rome starting in 59 B.C. these notices alerted the citizenry to the happenings of the government. Despite serving as an act of transparency and functioning as a new democratic norm, acta diurna were distinct from today's news outlets in an important way. They were authorized narratives of the government, first ordered by Julius Caesar. Still, every newspaper and form of mass media can trace its origins back to this practice, though the the posts and notices would evolve over millennia into myriad new formats and media. By the 17th century the Dutch had curantos, or currents of news, which pulled together foreign journals and translated them for the country's citizens. Rudimentary newspapers were popping up across European countries and Japan at this time, too. In 1621 the first English courantos appeared in London, and by 1702 the Daily Current was publishing, well, daily. But it was never easy. For decades, England had a stranglehold on the press through a licensing system which prohibited any new publication from popping up without a government license. The idea that an American newspaper today would have to apply to the United States government to publish is, of course abhorrent and offensive to most people, but it was the norm until 1695. John Milton, widely credited with developing the concept of the marketplace of ideas, though the phrase would not be coined until much later, was a key challenger to the practice of licensing. He argued forcefully that individuals were capable of using reason to assess right and wrong, and that having unfettered access to the ideas of others was central to a well ordered society. The system in which the government could choose who could publish and criminalize criticism of itself was self evidently broken in Milton's eyes. Across England, journalists spent most of the 18th century fighting for the right to put pen to paper without oversight about their leaders. Parliament treated the publication of its debates as a breach of privilege, arguing that its members should be able to speak freely behind closed doors without fear of their words being reported or distorted outside the Chamber. When printers published those proceedings, they'd often get fined, imprisoned, or hauled before the Chamber to be reprimanded publicly. Some printers got creative, publishing fictionalized accounts of what was happening behind closed doors to avoid the bans, while making it clear they would not so easily put their pens down. In 1771, John Wilkes, an alderman of the City of London, a former and future member of Parliament and a British radical, sparked a legal standoff by protecting printers inside London's own jurisdiction. He refused to hand over the printers to Parliament for punishment while encouraging them to continue publishing, and the House of Commons responded by imprisonment, imprisoning city officials. This, predictably, only inflamed public furor and ignited more support for press freedom. As that support exploded and in the midst of the legal obstruction organized in London, Parliament folded. Rather than repeal a legal ban on publishing accounts of parliamentary proceedings, Parliament simply stopped enforcing it. The printers and public had won, and press freedom advanced, sparking a crop of new newspapers across Europe. Today, we might expect and accept that certain government meetings will happen behind closed doors, but we demand and receive access to the happenings of Congress and regularly have reporters fleshing out the backdoor deals with leaks, recordings and deeply sourced reporting. This precedent can be traced back to the era of Parliament printers. It was nearly a century earlier when the first American newspaper, Public Occurrences, both foreign and domestic, published its first edition in 1690. Public occurrences lasted exactly one issue before colonial authorities shut it down for printing unlicensed content. A few decades later, James Franklin, the brother of Benjamin Franklin, helped launch both the Boston Gazette and the New England Courant, setting off a kind of news frenzy in the colonies. In 1734, a convoluted political battle ended with seditious libel charges against John Peter Zenger, the publisher of New York Weekly Journalist, which was regularly critical of then New York Governor William Cosby. That crime was different from modern day libel. It was defined as the, quote, intentional publication, without lawful excuse or justification, of written blame of any public man or of the law or any institution established by the law. Imagine a world where blaming a public official for wrongdoing in print was a crime. But regardless of whether your accusations were true, though two grand juries were summoned, both refused to indict Zenger, forcing Governor Cosby to turn to more extreme measures. Initially, he ordered a ceremonial burning of the publication's papers and ordered the popularly elected assemblyman refused. The governor then demanded a sheriff burn the papers. Upon receiving his orders, the sheriff sought authorization from a court alderman. The court adjourned without granting an authorization. The sheriff ended up handing the papers to a servant who burnt them without an official sanction, making the episode a public embarrassment for Cosby. Since his initial plan failed, Cosby resorted to an unusual and highly unpopular legal procedure to move forward prosecuting Zenger without a grand jury indictment. Zenger pledded not guilty and while awaiting trial, spent months in prison. The jury's sole task was to determine if Zenger was responsible for the libelous statement. His lawyers tried to get the case thrown out by challenging the appointment of the judges overseeing it and instead were themselves barred from practicing law in the court. John Chambers, a Cosby loyalist, was appointed to represent Zenger. But Chambers defied expectations by doing the work honorably. The case eventually drew the attention and the help of of a preeminent colonial attorney named Andrew Hamilton. In the final days of the trial, a remarkable moment unfolded. Chambers argued that the court could not prove who was responsible for the libel and that the Attorney General would not present evidence to prove it was Zenger. Then Andrew Hamilton rose on behalf of Zenger and preempted the Attorney General's case. He admitted that Zenger published the journals as alleged, but but told the jury they must consider the fact that the statements Zenger published were the truth. Famously, Hamilton addressed the jury. The question before the court and you gentlemen of the jury, is not of small or private concern. It is not the cause of one poor printer, nor of New York alone, which you are now trying. No. It may in its consequence affect every free man that lives under a British government. On the main of America, it is the best cause. It is the cause of liberty. We'll be right back after this quick break.
- [11:06]
Tangle Host
Hey everyone, quick thought before we get started. If you listen to Tangle, it's probably because you're trying to escape the media echo chamber. But even when you read broadly, it's hard to see which stories are being emphasized and which ones are being ignored. This episode is brought to you by Ground News. Ground News is not a publisher. It's an app and website that gathers reporting on every news story from across the political spectrum and shows you each outlet's bias rating, factuality rating and who owns it. It's more than just an aggregator. It gives you context on every perspective in one place so that you can make up your own mind. For example, a recent story about a bipartisan border deal collapsing was covered by 50 outlets. One left leaning headline read GOP sinks border deal under Trump Pressure, while a right leaning one said Democrats block Stronger Border enforcement. Same event, very different framing. Ground News lets you compare that instantly and even flags blind spots stories disproportionately covered by one side. If you want unlimited access to these features, subscribe to the vantage plan for 40% off@groundnews.com tn that's groundnews.com tn promo code tn again, groundnews.com tn code tn for 40% off if you care about seeing the full picture, I think you'll really value this tool.
- [12:24]
Grow Therapy Advertiser
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- [13:33]
Isaac Sowell
The Chief justice tried to insist to the jury that it only consider whether Zenger had published the offending issues of the New York Weekly Journal. But Hamilton's words were impossible to unhear. The jury found Zenger not guilty, and the idea that truthful statements could be exempt from charges of libel was officially a seed planted in American soil. It would grow like wildflowers. But it was the 19th century that truly formed the media ecosystem we are operating in or departing from today. In the early 1800s, most newspapers had circulations in the low thousands and were primarily read by wealthy, educated Americans. When Benjamin Day launched the penny paper in New York city in the 1830s, thousands more Americans could suddenly access the news. Then some names you might still recognize began to pop up. The Associated press arrived in 1846. An independent paper called the New York Times launched in 1851 and was widely known for being less flamboyant and sensational than its peers. Paul J. Reuter began serving newspapers in 1858 from London. By mid century, 400 dailies and 3,000 weekly newspapers were smattered across the United States, each protected by the First Amendment's promise that the government could not infringe upon the freedom of the press, and each descendants of Hamilton's promise that protecting a free press was the cause of liberty. It wasn't until the late 19th century that Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst were also competing for readers. And by then the first newspapers were circulating 500,000 copies. Roughly the audience of the Tangle newsletter, all nearly 2,000 years after the act of diurna were being passed around on slabs of stone. So it's not lost on me that I get to write this essay, press, send or publish and reach as many or more people than some of the most prolific names of journalism ever did. It's also not lost on me that I get to do this job in an era where my work and the work of my colleagues is better protected than ever. In other countries, and sometimes here in the United States, journalists still go to prison for their writing or get killed in war zones while reporting. President Trump is notoriously litigious with the media, but these events are front page news when they happen because contextually they are now quite unusual. Many Americans I've spoken to have adopted a fanciful notion that we are in the most dreadful days of the American media. On the one hand, I get that impulse as we ring in 250 years of these United States, the press is facing historically low trust. It is fractured and segmented, and it's facing challenges from every direction. The rise of influencers, attacks from the President, the advent of artificial intelligence, and financial struggles. But on the other hand, the press is rising to the moment. More people than ever in world history have access to and are consuming the news. New models of journalism, from independent newsletters to Gonzo YouTube journalism to hedge funds. As news outlets are succeeding, the fractured media is also an accessible one. We're less prone to being silenced or censored than we've ever been. You can no longer just burn the paper my words were printed on to shut me up. Take away my TV show and I'll take it to Twitter. Ban my X account and I'll go to YouTube. Throttle my YouTube channel and I'll start a newsletter. Bury my newsletter and I'll launch a texting service. Despite so many people pining for the days of trusted legends like Walter Cronkite, every era of the American press has been marred by Threats of censorship, sensationalism, misinformation, partisan hackery and error. All one needs to do is observe a brief moment in the 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century experience to choose the 21st century as the most ideal time to be producing or consuming the news or without hesitation. The institution isn't just still strong with robust freedoms, it is the strongest and most protected it has ever been, even if the very real threats to the press today are different than those of our recent memory. Of course, the downside of all these options for news is that it's also very easy for people to just hunt down the outlet that confirms their priors. This is of course part of why I started Tangled to get people out of their echo chambers and information silos. But the upside is far greater. No one newspaper, tycoon, television network or radio station is in control, nor is a single or even a group of social media platforms. Governors can't and won't order the mass burning of newspapers when they face harsh criticism, then imprison publishers. When all else fails, we are free to speak, report, write, criticize, and be as loud mouthed and bloviating as we want, sometimes to our own detriment. Conspiratorial partisan hackery is easy to see as a cancerous tumor on our society, but it's harder to recognize as the byproduct of a truly free and open ecosystem. The liars and snake oil salesmen with massive platforms frustrate, but also comfort me. They are a callback to the days of yellow journalism and a reminder that there is no parliament or king or lord coming to knock down my door and drag me to jail, whether I'm speaking truth, plainly or sensationally. So as we carry the torch of our professional ancestors into the future, and as we celebrate our 250th birthday, I'm thinking today about the men and women who came before me, whose wisdom and sacrifice I want to draw on. Here at Tangle, we are striving to be a news outlet as affordable and accessible as the penny papers, with a Miltonian devotion to the marketplace of ideas, a Hamiltonian promise of free speech guaranteeing liberty, and a John Wilkes level commitment to the notion that our government owes us transparency. These virtues aren't just timeless, but wise and perhaps more relevant now than ever. So a happy 4th of July to you all, a happy 2-50th to this great country, and a toast to 250 more years of a fearless, free and informative press. We'll be back next week with the news. Until then, hope you guys enjoy the long weekend.
- [19:52]
Tangle Host
Peace.
- [19:55]
Isaac Sowell
Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Sowell, and our executive producer is John Lowell. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Lil Kback and Associate editors Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Knuth and Bailey Saul. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website@leetangle.com.
- [20:22]
Progressive Insurance Advertiser
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