Monday, September 20, 2010

John Peter Zenger, Truth Be Told

Upon arrival at New York colonial governor William Cosby began taking opposition for his policies in New York. john Peter Zenger, a colonist published a newspaper titled Zenger's New-York Weekly JOURNAL. Cosby plunges into a quarrel with the council of the colony over something as simple as his salary. Thus, unable to control the state's Supreme Court he removed Chief Justice Lewis Morris and replaced him with James Delancey who was from the Royal Party. All the while Zenger, backed up by the popular party continued too publish his articles against governor Cosby. Cosby has an outrage and declares Zenger's Newspaper "divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections.". Zenger was then arrested for seditious libel. After approximately 7 years in prison Zenger was taken to trial and defended by Andrew Hamilton, from Philadelphia. During the trial Hamilton did not plead to the judge, but to the jury. At the end of the trial, the jury had a verdict; not guilty.

During Zenger's case, one of Hilton's important points was that the if something could be proven, in this case Zenger's statements then it could not be libel. Hamilton thus proved that their was freedom of the press in America. Now 260 years later, the press has a lot more freedoms than it did back then. However the press's freedom is still substantially limited to what they can report and report on. The oil spill in the gulf of Mexico, the unknown cause of Michael Jacksons death, and limited information in the middle east are just some examples of limited freedom of the press.

1 comment:

  1. It sure sucked to be Governor Cosby at the end of all this!

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