How Journalism Brought Colonists Together

Journalism helped to unify the colonists despite their varying beliefs, and eventually led them to the Revolutionary War and their freedom from Britain. Though most historians build upon earlier information found by previous historians, some start from scratch and discover their own narrative. While most historians present similar information surrounding the pre-revolutionary period, including vilifying the British and blaming the war on British rule, there are few books that touch on the significance of the press. In Reporting: The Revolutionary War, author Todd Andrlik notes how “these frontline newspapers deliver incomparable insight about America’s founding,” (Andrlik 2012, VI) and highlights the realistic eyewitness accounts we can grasp simply from pieces written over 300 years ago. These firsthand accounts allow historians to grasp what occurred in colonial America through the colonist's point of view. In the Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Robert Parkinson speaks on the importance of the press before the war, and stresses that without the media, there would be no war. While historians are just now starting to interpret articles from hundreds of years ago, contrasting details are slowly changing the narratives of historical events, including the Boston Massacre. By analyzing newspapers and pamphlets from hundreds of years ago, we can unlock new perspectives that led colonists to freedom.

Without newspapers and the propaganda spread throughout them, we may have never seen a unified nation, yet alone freedom from Great Britain. Newspapers added fuel to the already burning fight for freedom, and brought colonists closer together. Without print, the United States of America may have never been united.