America's First Newspaper - Boston - 1690

Benjamin Harris and “Public Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick"

May 5, 2009
Roger Saunders

Publick Occurences - Public Domain

A Newspaper and Pamphlet publisher, accused of sedition in London, flees to Boston and helps establish that city's reputation as America's "Cradle of Journalism".

Benjamin Harris was a maverick in the early days of journalism. He was not alone but he definitely stood out from the crowd. He was briefly jailed by the government for sedition related to his publishing exploits in London. Upon his release, he took up where he left off publishing a pamphlet, eerily prophetic for his future home of Boston, called "English Liberties". This document, written by Henry Care with the ubiquitous full name of "English Liberties or the Free-Born Subjects Inheritance" had a 5000 copy first run and ratcheted up the heat on Harris so much that he felt the urgent need to sail to the colonies!

America's First News Reporter

In 1690, Boston was a very likely place for a news man to ply his trade as it had a population center of about 7000, largest in America at the time. The economic climate was booming and the educated, mostly Puritan, and close to 100% literate population was hungry for news from "home" in England as well as the immediate neighborhood. Harris must have sensed this mood when he named his paper and advertised both "Foreign and Domestick" news. However, Harris may have prophetically hinted as to the success of his undertaking when he rented a tiny unpresupposing shack in which to publish his news!

America's First News

The first issue on September 25, 1690, consisted of four pages. Only three had actual news printed on them. It included stories about ow a sailor had escaped from some Indians and news on the ever present conflict with the French in Canada. Harris left the fourth page blank for people to write their own comments or news on before they passed them on to neighbors and friends. It was a time honored practice among the thrifty Puritan folk to "share" subscriptions to almost any publication. Eric Burns in his book Infamous Scribblers, says, "This made Publick Occurences a source of interactive journalism a full three centuries before the Internet." Indeed it may be argued that this was the very first instance of a news blog in America.

America's First "Spin"

Burns tells us that Harris's stated intention in the first issue for this paper was that "something be done toward curing ... that Spirit of Lying which prevails among us." He goes on to relate that while the first story in the paper was a praise for "Christianized" Indians who had proposed and observed a day of thanksgiving for their harvest, a closely subsequent story railed against Indian violence without bothering to mention any of the provocation that was known to have precipitated it. He even threw in a story that must have shocked Puritan senses with a rumor about the King of France sleeping with his son's wife.

American First News Censorship

This last story was the death knell for this first American Newspaper. Those same Puritan religious/political authorities could not stomach rumors of this kind of behavior, even if it was about the enemy. They easily found the way to silence Harris. He. on principal, had refused to apply for a license to publish his paper. He felt his own freedom as an Englishmen precluded any need to cow tow to such "censorship". The colonial authorities published a response of their own and shut Harris down before a second issue could even be set in type.