# First use of "the press" as a collective reference to newspapers

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-the-press-as-a-collective-reference-to-newspapers/824680>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 17, 2018, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-the-press-as-a-collective-reference-to-newspapers/824680 "2018-11-17T14:45:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Batano](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@Batano](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Batano)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2018, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-the-press-as-a-collective-reference-to-newspapers/824680/21 "2018-11-18T06:11:56Z")

</div>

I believe that it is not directed at just newspapers, but also to book publishers and pamphleteers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphleteer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamphleteer) The 18th century version of Twitter.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2018, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-the-press-as-a-collective-reference-to-newspapers/824680/22 "2018-11-18T16:21:39Z")

</div>

> [@Xema](#):
>
> Yes, few people had a printing press. A substantially larger number could find someone who did, and have things printed.

And a much, much substantially larger number of people couldn’t get things printed, which is why their rights were specifically enumerated as speech, assembly, and redress of grievances.

> [@](#):
>
> I see no evidence that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom … of the press” was in any way intended to to restrict its protection to those who had printing presses.

That is because the first amendment is not about restricting rights, as I have repeatedly said in parts of my posts that you have for some inexplicable reason ignored. It is about guaranteeing rights.

Prior to the first amendment, if you had a printing press, the government _could_ tell you what you could and could not print. Historically, printing presses were often regulated, and in the run up to the revolutionary war, the british government did try to stop people from publishing anti-british literature. Contemporaneously, there are many countries around the world that do not enjoy this freedom that you take so much for granted that you would somehow think that the first amendment was meant to restrict freedoms, rather than guarantee them.

The first amendment was to ensure that all means of communication were not interfered with by the government. One of those enumerated rights was that if you had a printing press, the government could not tell you what you could and could not publish.

The other enumerated rights were to specifically guarantee all other forms of communication they could think of. If they had been around today, they most likely would have enumerated radio, tv, and even the internet, but since those did not exist at the time, as the only form of mass communication was to use a printing press, that was what they specifically protected.

> [@](#):
>
> As I see it, this was clearly meant to be a right applicable to all, even though it was obvious that not everyone would make direct use of this right.

It was a right that guaranteed that anyone with access to a means of mass communication could use that means without govt interference. It is basic tautological logic that someone without access to a means of mass communication did not have access to a means of mass communication.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-use-of-the-press-as-a-collective-reference-to-newspapers/824680.md?page=1)