Amendment I (Speech and Press): Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell

Amendment I (Speech and Press)

Document 29

Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell

14 June 1807Works 10:417--18

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a<br>newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I<br>should answer, "by restraining it to true facts & sound<br>principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few<br>subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of<br>the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of<br>it's benefits, than is done by it's abandoned prostitution to<br>falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a<br>newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put<br>into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of<br>misinformation is known only to those who are in situations<br>to confront facts within their knolege with the lies<br>of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great<br>body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live<br>& die in the belief, that they have known something of<br>what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas<br>the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true<br>a history of any other period of the world as of the present,<br>except that the real names of the day are affixed to<br>their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from<br>them, such as that Europe is now at war, that Bonaparte<br>has been a successful warrior, that he has subjected a great<br>portion of Europe to his will, &c., &c.; but no details can<br>be relied on. I will add, that the man who never looks into<br>a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them;<br>inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than<br>he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who<br>reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details<br>are all false.

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some<br>such way as this. Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading<br>the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies.<br>The first chapter would be very short, as it would contain<br>little more than authentic papers, and information from<br>such sources as the editor would be willing to risk his own<br>reputation for their truth. The 2d would contain what,<br>from a mature consideration of all circumstances, his judgment<br>should conclude to be probably true. This, however,<br>should rather contain too little than too much. The 3d &<br>4th should be professedly for those readers who would<br>rather have lies for their money than the blank paper they<br>would occupy.

The Founders' Constitution

Volume 5, Amendment I (Speech and Press), Document 29<br>http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendI_speechs29.html<br>The University of Chicago Press

The Works of Thomas Jefferson. Collected and edited by Paul Leicester Ford. Federal Edition. 12 vols. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904--5.

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