party press era

party press era, period (1780s–1830s) in United States history when news editors received patronage from political parties, usually in the form of government printing contracts. An editor would readily endorse a party’s candidates and champion its principles, typically in line with his own beliefs, and in return would receive support for his six-cent paper. This gave the editor, who often also served as printer, writer, and business manager, a sense of prestige and power in society, and patronage was critical to the paper’s long-term economic stability.

The era is considered by some to have begun in 1783 with the end of the American Revolution, as some newspapers took a clearly partisan stance in the nascent country’s developing political system. Others, however, maintain that the era began in 1789 with the founding of the Gazette of the United States, considered to be the first newspaper founded as an official organ of a political party.

The American press saw extensive growth during the party press era. In 1783 the newly independent country had only 35 newspapers, but by 1833 it had 1,200. The nonadvertising content of the party press era was primarily political news and interpretation, including abuse hurled at opponents. Most editors prominently displayed the names of a party’s ticket for weeks. Editors also printed speeches of major national and state political leaders as well as significant government documents.

The party press era coincided with the first party systems in the United States. First came the contest between the Republicans and the Federalists, followed by the battle between Democrats and Whigs. Editors, many of them politicians themselves, lined up on each side of these political divides and interpreted events of the day within the ideology of a particular party. The concept of having a press that represented a variety of political points of view came directly out of the civil liberties philosophy of James Madison, among others, as stated in the First Amendment, which guarantees no interference from Congress regarding freedom of the press. Implicitly, not having an official government newspaper was parallel to the idea of not having a single state religion.

Early in the party press era, newspapers had to survive the 1798 Sedition Act of Pres. John Adams, which made criticism of the federal government illegal. Several Republican editors were prosecuted under that law, but his successor and political opponent, Thomas Jefferson, let the renewable law expire. Jefferson believed that written criticism of the government did not necessarily lead to revolution and that the press could serve as a check on the abuse of power.

The party press era is generally held to have ended in the 1830s with the rise of the penny press, which, as its name suggests, allowed for a less-expensive publication. Newspapers were able to flourish free of partisan patronage, and publications that claimed to be objective grew in appeal to readers; these and other changes were ushered in during this time. Most American newspapers, however, still retained a partisan nature in the subsequent decades: according to 1860 census data, 80 percent of the press at the time was partisan.